Hurricane Ian made landfall along Florida's southwest coast Wednesday afternoon, lashing the state with heavy rain and producing a devastating storm surge after strengthening to near Category 5 strength.
As the storm approached Florida, a clip from Fox News, claiming to show host Shepard Smith issuing a dire warning about Hurricane Ian for residents of Florida, went viral on Twitter (see here and here).
“See this? Melbourne, Daytona Beach, all the way up to Jacksonville. This moves 20 miles to the west, and you and everyone you know are dead. All of you. Because you can't survive it. It's not possible unless you're very, very lucky. And your kids die too,” Smith says in the clip.
As of Sept. 28, the video had more than 9 million views.
More from VERIFY: No, homeowners and renters insurance doesn’t typically cover flood damage from hurricanes
THE QUESTION
Did Fox News host Shepard Smith give a dire warning about Hurricane Ian?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the video is from 2016 and shows former Fox News host Shepard Smith talking about Hurricane Matthew’s path.
WHAT WE FOUND
A Fox News spokesperson confirmed to VERIFY that the clip is an old segment unrelated to Hurricane Ian and has not been rebroadcasted.
The segment featuring the former Fox News host aired on Oct. 6, 2016 and went viral at the time (see here, here and here, as examples).
Smith left Fox News in 2019 and is currently the host of “The News with Shepard Smith” on CNBC.
In the viral clip posted in September 2022 ahead of Hurricane Ian, the ticker at the bottom of the clip mentions Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall off the East Coast in October 2016. Hurricane Matthew brought historic flood levels to North Carolina and caused millions of dollars in damage and multiple deaths in the state, according to the National Weather Service.
The ticker on the bottom of the viral clip also said the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or the stock market index, was at 18,269.54.
As of Sept. 28, 2022, the Dow was 29,566.92.
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