Harvey Hoax: There are no sharks on Houston's flooded freeways

Photos: Tropical Storm Harvey floods Houston An Ireland-based blogger shared this viral, but long-debunked image claiming to show a shark on a Houston highway. See real images of the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Harvey. less Photos: Tropical Storm Harvey floods Houston An Ireland-based blogger shared this viral, but long-debunked image claiming to show a shark on a Houston highway. See real images of the devastation caused by ... more Photo: Jason Michael On Twitter Photo: Jason Michael On Twitter Image 1 of / 117 Caption Close Harvey Hoax: There are no sharks on Houston's flooded freeways 1 / 117 Back to Gallery

Despite what you may have seen on Twitter, there are still no sharks on Houston flooded freeways.

In what has seemingly become a tradition whenever Houston floods, a long-debunked image of a shark swimming along side a car on the highway is being shared on social media.

This time a Dublin, Ireland based blogger named Jason Michael helped start the rumor and his tweet had been shared more than 11,000 times as of 11 am on Monday.

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Believe it or not, this is a shark on the freeway in Houston, Texas. #HurricaneHarvy pic.twitter.com/ANkEiEQ3Y6 — Jason Michael (@Jeggit) August 28, 2017

The shark image also went viral during the 2015 Memorial Day flood, where it was debunked by the fact-checking website Snopes. It has previously been credited to numerous other natural disasters. According to Snopes:

"The same image has been recirculated several times over, typically localized to some big city in the United States that has just experienced a hurricane or other weather event producing heavy rains and floods. Its most recent iterations assigned it to Houston after heavy rains pounded portions of Texas over Memorial Day weekend in 2015, Daytona Beach after Hurricane Matthew approached Florida in October 2016, and Houston again in August 2017 after Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey caused massive flooding throughout the city."

The real image, verified by the the site, involved a shark trailing a kayaker that appeared in a 2005 issue of Africa Geographic, which can be view here.

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Social media hoaxes and fake stories have been a major issue since then-Hurricane Harvey first made landfall in Texas, and many of them can have more dire consequences than an image of a shark on the road.

Before the storm made landfall, Houston officials were quick to shoot down a report from a Sugar Land lawyer that claimed the storm was going to be much worse than projected.

Once waters began to rise around Houston the city's Office of Emergency Management had to speak up about a viral post claiming they were shutting off water service.

Another post even listed a fake number that could be used to reach the National Guard, a rumor that could have left people in serious danger.

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Mayor Sylvester Turner spoke out about the fake news posts on Friday and encouraged residents to follow mainstream news organizations, the National Weather Service and the Office of Emergency Management for updates on the storm.

"False forecasts and irresponsible rumors on social media are interfering with efforts by the city of Houston, and its government and news media partners, to provide accurate information to the public about the expected effects of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Harvey," Turner said in a Friday statement.

"Rumors are nothing new, but the widespread use of social media has needlessly frightened many people today."