Eustace Conway, a former reality TV star and founder of the 1,000-acre Turtle Island Preserve in Watauga County, has become one of the most prominent North Carolina voices promoting debunked claims about the devastation of Tropical Storm Helene, giving them traction and an audience well beyond North Carolina on social media.
Conspiracy theories and unfounded rumors have dominated parts of the internet following the storm, making efforts by local and state officials to relay accurate and verified information to survivors and other North Carolina residents all the more difficult. One of the top issues of contention is the death toll in Western North Carolina.
In a video posted on Oct. 19, Conway claimed the official death count from the storm undercounted fatalities by the thousands, and accused the government and the news media of lying about the true impact of the storm.
“We’ve got piles and piles and piles of dead bodies,” Conway said in the video.
“We’ve got 18-wheeler refrigerator trucks filled up with dead bodies… Why is there such a disparity between the reality of what I’m seeing here and what you’re getting told?”
In another video posted to his YouTube and Instagram pages on Oct. 5, Conway claimed that officials leading response and recovery operations were preventing volunteers and donations from helping hurricane victims.
“The people that are supposed to be coming here to help...
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