People believe that there are sharks swimming along the highways in Florida after some very convincing photoshop work from a social media prankster.
Images started circulating online of sharks swimming in water that had submerged roads and also showing the sea predators taking up positions in a flooded shopping mall.
The sharks were said to be in Florida, the southern US state most affected by Hurricane Ian, what President Joe Biden fears could lead to “substantial loss of life”.
Before Biden made his sombre declaration, Twitter user @barryonhere tweeted a series of pictures depicting sharks in various frightening positions
“There are sharks on the highways in Florida. Unreal,” read the first tweet in a string of messages
He then showed three sharks swimming in flood water inside a mall, writing: “It just keeps getting WORSE!! Now sharks are attacking public spaces like malls. This is a coordinated attack.”
Anyone who saw the two tweets might have been duped by the convincing photoshop work, but the next two tweets revealed the user was making light of a bad situation in Florida.
He followed his mall picture with one of an orca leaping from the water that flooded a street in “downtown Miami.”
“It gets even crazier, an Orca was just spotted swimming in downtown Miami. Unreal,” he wrote.
It then became abundantly clear he was joking when he wrote: “Oh my god a shark assassin with a laser beam somehow snuck into the White House pool and tried to wipe out President Biden.”
He also tweeted a picture of a massive great white shark biting the Golden Gate Bridge in California, warning that “billions of lives could be lost.”
His satirical tweets came before Joe Biden’s warning at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington DC on Thursday afternoon.
The US President said the storm continues to move across Florida and is possibly the deadliest the state has ever seen.
Mr Biden continued: “My message to the people of Florida and to the country: At times like this, America comes together. We’re going to pull together as one team, as one America.”
“However long it takes, we’re going to get there,” POTUS46 said, adding: “That’s my commitment to you.”
It comes as rescue workers and residents of Florida’s Gulf Coast today searched for missing people and picked up the pieces from wrecked homes.
The howling winds, torrential rains and raging surf have caused major destruction, including massive power outages.
