Viral Facebook video does NOT show Hurricane Irma

A video showing severe winds tearing down trees along a town road is going viral claiming to show the first moments Hurricane Irma hits the Caribbean islands.

Posted to Facebook by user Hendry Moya Duran on September 5th, the post accumulated over 800,000 shares in only 2 days. [Still below]

However the video does not show Hurricane Irma. A quick search on YouTube reveals the same video having been uploaded in May 2016, but frustratingly the video description didn’t reveal where the footage was taken from (but given the date, obviously nothing to do with Irma!)

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And before we were about to do a Google Maps search to hopefully reveal the identity of the location using the BBVA office clearly visible in the video, Hoax of Fame beat us to the punch, confirming that (as many suspected) this video was taken during a 2016 hurricane in Dolores, Uruguay. (See the street view here.)

As such, please stop sharing this video since it has a false caption and does a disservice to those genuinely effected by Hurricane Irma.