Dan Scavino, director of social networks of the president of the USA, Donald Trump, caused this Sunday a certain turmoil to publish in Twitter a video that supposedly showed flooded the International Airport of Miami (MIA) by the impact of Hurricane Irma, and that turned out to be false .
“That’s Miami’s International Airport. Be careful!” Scavino said, releasing a video that apparently showed the waterlogged airfield as a result of Irma, who landed Sunday in the Florida Keys.
The White House official even shared the images with Trump and US Vice President Mike Pence until it was denied by the MIA authorities, who denied that it was the airport, the most important airport in Florida and the main gate of departure flights from the US to Latin America.
“This video is not from Miami International Airport,” the aerodrome officials said in their Twitter account.
Scavino ended up admitting the error and deleted the tweet: “I was among the hundreds of videos / photos I’m receiving” of the hurricane, the social media director argued, giving the MIA “thanks” for the warning.
“Thanks, Dan,” the MIA responded to Scavino, a trusted advisor to the president who worked as director of Trump’s Westchester golf club in New York state before joining the tycoon’s 2016 election campaign.
Miami International Airport will be closed this Monday due to damages caused by Hurricane Irma, its director, Emilio T. González, said Sunday.
The airport, which closed late Friday as a precaution to withstand Irma’s arrival, suffered “major water damage from top to bottom,” Gonzalez said in her Twitter account.
The MIA is expected to resume activity, with limited services, on Tuesday after hundreds of flights were canceled on Saturday and Sunday in the wake of the hurricane.
Irma landed early Sunday morning in the Florida Keys, at the southern end of the state, where she arrived with Category 4 strength and sustained maximum winds of 215 kilometers per hour, then returned to land, more weakened, in Marco Island, on the west coast of the peninsula.
The cyclone has been loosing strength as it moves northward unloading its largest destructive power on the west coast of Florida, where it has left severe flooding and debris, and has now been demoted to a Category 2 hurricane, a maximum of five on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
So far, only three people have been reported to have died because of Irma in Florida, but it is feared that the death toll rises once weather conditions permit the work of relief teams.
Trump, who signed a major disaster declaration in Florida on Sunday, announced that he will visit the state “very soon” and was satisfied with the authorities’ response to the hurricane.
