A short video appearing to show the winds from Hurricane Hanna blowing over portions of the U.S.-Mexico border wall built by President Donald Trump‘s administration in Texas has gone viral. The clip earned celebrations from Twitter users, who praised Mother Nature for knocking down the fence. However, there are some questions about the validity of the video.
The 39-second clip appears to show a group of workers in hard hats and safety vests watching as a wind gust blows down a fence. It quickly went viral on Twitter, with one post of the video racking up over 50,000 views Sunday afternoon. Since then, federal authorities have been trying to find out if the clip really shows parts of the border wall in South Texas being blown over, reports the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
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Roderick Kise, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Rio Grande Valley, told the Caller-Times he received “seven or eight” calls from reporters about the video. He said he was checking with his superiors in Washington, D.C., but said he does not think the video was filmed in South Texas. The biggest clue that it was not is the time of day the video was taken. “The hurricane hit us at nighttime, but looks like it was shot during the day,” Kise pointed out.
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Hurricane Hanna just destroyed Trump’s racist wall ๐คฃ๐คฃ
โ Josรฉ (@yoruguaenusa) July 26, 2020
I really don’t care, do you?#TrumpIsACompleteFailure pic.twitter.com/IPdqIBLYlq
The video originated from a tweet published by Yadith Valdez, who writes for the site Multimedios.com. She published several videos on Sunday, apparently showing damage caused by Hurricane Hanna. “And so, ‘Hanna’ knocked down part of the border wall that is being built between the United States and Mexico,” she wrote in Spanish, alongside the wall video. “For the fury of nature, there are no borders.”
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Mother Nature has spoken https://t.co/YrxaLp5hCl
โ Zoey (@zoeyy227) July 26, 2020
Valdez deleted her tweet, but not before other Twitter users captured it and also claimed it showed the border wall. Other Twitter users were skeptical of the clip, with some noting it was similar to a January CNN report about high winds blowing down a portion of the border fencing built along the California-Mexico border.
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Sure, sex is great. But have you ever watched a pissed-off Mother Nature blow down a would-be tinpot dictatorโs stupid, pointless, racist wall?
โ George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) July 27, 2020
Although this questionable video has gone viral, Hanna did cause real damage in Corpus Christi and elsewhere in South Texas. The hurricane made landfall late Saturday as a Category 1. It first made landfall at Padre Island, then again in Kennedy with sustained winds at 90 mph, reports the Caller-Times. It weakened into a tropical storm overnight, as it continued into northern Mexico. By 3 p.m. Sunday, Hanna was a tropical depression.ย
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Trumpโs mighty border wall (fence) is being knocked over by a hurricane.
โ Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) July 26, 2020
Mother nature is done with his shit.https://t.co/0PkS9Mpilx
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Mother Nature took down the Border wall with ease. ๐
โ SHELLY ๐ (Flash) (@shellpartduex) July 27, 2020
Who wants to take bets that Drumph blames Obama? https://t.co/6gGnzuZLm0
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A #borderwall championed by a tyrannical blowhard is easily brought down by hurricane-force winds from Mother Nature. Karma can be a beautiful thing sometimes. https://t.co/ISwcWCZ2ck
โ ๐งILL ๐ฆUCL๐IR๐๐ท (@bill_auclair) July 26, 2020