TikTok influencer arrested, NC sheriff says [Video]

BAT CAVE, N.C. (FOX Carolina) – The Henderson County Sheriff said he is setting the record straight about misinformation going viral on social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

A TikTok user who the sheriff identified as David James Phillips posted a video claiming FEMA was blocking access to aid for hurricane victims via a road connecting Bat Cave and Chimney Rock.

“Now, in these videos, he keeps blaming FEMA, and he keeps laying out that these folks have had no help,” Sheriff Lowell Griffin said. “I will tell you this, this entire county, with the devastation that it suffered, there were a lot of folks that for the first couple of days had to be kind of self-sufficient. But they’re tough. They’re mountain people.”

Griffin said the region is being helped by state, county, nonprofit and federal agencies.

The road in question was cut by West Virginia coal …