This video doesn’t show Hurricane Milton in Florida | Fact check

An Oct. 8 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a video montage of severe weather and flooding.
“Hurricane Milton is here 10/8/24,” reads on-screen text in the video.
The post’s caption reads, “Hurricane Milton in Florida.”
The post was liked more than 1,400 times in a day.
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The video is miscaptioned. Hurricane Milton had not yet hit Florida when the video was posted. The clips circulated online prior to Milton’s formation in the Gulf of Mexico – in some cases years before.
Milton formed as a tropical storm Oct. 5 in the Gulf of Mexico and quickly strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane as it approached the western coast of Florida, threatening a state that was still recovering from Hurricane Helene less than two weeks earlier. Milton was downgraded to a Category 4 storm and was expected to make landfall in or near the Tampa area Oct. 9 or Oct. 10.
But the video montage in the Instagram post does not show the effects of Hurricane Milton, which hadn’t made landfall in Florida at the time the post was made. The clips of storm footage have been circulating online since before Milton formed, and some have been repeatedly and falsely linked to high-profile storms.
The video’s opening clip of storm debris flying over parking lot in a residential area, for example, was posted July 15 on YouTube. The clip was previously falsely linked to Hurricane Helene.
The video montage moves on to a clip showing the U.S. flag flapping in strong winds. This clip was posted May 4, 2022, on YouTube by ABC News. The caption says it shows a tornado in Andover, Kansas.
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The next clip in the montage has been circulating online since at least Dec. 29, 2023, when it was posted on YouTube. The footage has variously been linked to locations in Mexico, Russia and the country of Georgia, though USA TODAY couldn’t immediately verify its origin.
The video mashup in the Instagram post goes on to show more clips of storm footage that predate Hurricane Milton before ending on a clip of palm trees being hit by strong winds next to a multistory building. This clip has been circulating online since at least April 17, when it was posted on TikTok. It was falsely linked to Hurricane Helene, as well.
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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