Rush Limbaugh evacuates studio ahead of Irma after complaining about ‘panic’
Rush Limbaugh, who has suggested that the “panic” caused by approaching hurricanes actually benefits retailers, the media and climate change activists, abandoned his south Florida studio ahead of Hurricane Irma.
On his show Thursday from his facility in Palm Beach, the conservative radio host said airing his show Friday would be “problematic” and “legally impossible.”
Limbaugh said his show would be back on the air next week “from parts unknown.” Mark Steyn filled in for Limbaugh on Friday.
The radio personality had been criticized for complaining about the hype attached to the storm and has questioned some of the forecasts.
"There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it," Limbaugh said Wednesday. "You can accomplish a lot just by creating fear and panic. You don't need a hurricane to hit anywhere. All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and dangerous.
“The media benefits with the panic, with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they're getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers."
Forecaster Al Roker appeared to take a shot at Limbaugh’s statement on MSNBC, saying that “we have to be very vigilant.”
“There are some out there who say we should ignore this, that it's hype. That it's fake news,” Roker said. “That it's part of a climate change kind of conspiracy. It is not. This is life threatening. It could be devastating, and if anyone tells you otherwise, it is almost criminal.”
Once news of Limbaugh’s decision to evacuate circulated, many on social media took the chance to mock the radio host.
This story was originally published September 8, 2017 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Rush Limbaugh evacuates studio ahead of Irma after complaining about ‘panic’."