In a story that calls to mind the iconic fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf, it didn’t take long after Hurricane Ian blew ashore in Southwest Florida for the image of a shark seen swimming down a highway to surface online.
This same debunked image has spoofed many a people, showing up after every catastrophic event of late to suggest the most extreme results imaginable.
“Shark seen while driving down I-4 between Orlando and Tampa! Stay safe out there guys,” tweeted a merry prankster.
Shark seen while driving down I-4 between Orlando and Tampa!
Stay safe out there guys. #ian #HurricaneIan pic.twitter.com/lrB8lI8MfW
— Lord Randal (@TennesseeAbroad) September 29, 2022
Of course, most folks are onto the ruse by this point so when ANOTHER video showed up featuring a shark well inland, skepticism prevailed.
But a video from Fort Myers, which appears to have taken the brunt of the storm surge from the massive hurricane that made landfall at more than 150 mph and left a wake of destruction in its path, appears to be real.
A video of what many suspected to be a shark swimming in a flood in Fort Myers went viral as #HurricaneIan began hammering Florida. The video is authentic, but whether it shows a shark or another type of fish has not yet been determined.
Credit: Dominic Cameratta via Storyful pic.twitter.com/n6AHmi03cQ
— Storyful (@Storyful) September 30, 2022
Local real estate developer Dominic Cameratta confirmed to the Associated Press that he filmed the clip from his patio Wednesday morning after seeing something “flopping around” in his neighbor’s flooded yard.
“I didn’t know what it was — it just looked like a fish or something,” Cameratta said. “I zoomed in, and all my friends are like, ‘It’s like a shark, man!’ ”
Whatever it was, it appears to be about four feet in length and George Burgess, former director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark program told the AP that it “appears to be a juvenile shark.”
Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, director of the University of Miami’s shark conservation program, countered that “it’s pretty hard to tell.”
Leslie Guelcher, a professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pa., took to Twitter to question the timing of the footage — it’s not clear how she would have known what conditions were like on the ground:
Don’t think this is real. According to the index on the video it was created in June 2010. Someone else posted it at 10 AM as in Fort Myers, but the storm surge wasn’t like that at 10 AM.
— Dr. G. – vote because your life depends on it (@lag6267) September 28, 2022
For others, it is on the internet so it must be real… but don’t believe everything you see.
The image below features sharks swimming in “the Tampa subway system” during Hurricane Ian — the first clue that this is a fugazi may be the fact that the city DOES NOT have a subway system.
New photos show flooding and sharks have overtaken the Tampa subway system during Hurricane Ian. Unreal. Stay safe everyone. pic.twitter.com/OAolTkT2k3
— me (@BrennanSouhrada) September 28, 2022
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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