FILE - This May 14, 2012 file photo shows conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh speaking during a ceremony inducting him into the Hall of Famous Missourians in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, Limbaugh won the Children’s Choice Book Award for author of the year for his best-selling “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims." (AP Photo/Julie Smith, File)
FILE - This May 14, 2012 file photo shows conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh speaking during a ceremony inducting him into the Hall of Famous Missourians in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, Limbaugh won the Children’s Choice Book Award for author of the year for his best-selling “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims." (AP Photo/Julie Smith, File) Credit: Julie Smith

Palm Beach — Rush Limbaugh recently claimed that the media is manufacturing unwarranted panic about Hurricane Irma as part of a plot to hype climate change, boost ratings and increase advertising revenue from businesses that stand to make money off purchases of batteries and bottled water.

Limbaugh then accused The Washington Post and other news outlets of twisting his words while simultaneously doubling down on his conspiracy theory on Thursday.

“I explained how severe weather events are opportunities for big ratings boosts in the media and explained how it happens,” he said. “I explained how severe weather events impact retailers and how some retailers are smart enough to coordinate advertising with television stations. It happens!”

Limbaugh said something else on Thursday: He indicated he is evacuating his Palm Beach mansion, from which he broadcasts daily, for “parts unknown.”

“May as well go ahead and announce this,” he said. “I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow. … We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we’ll be back on Monday. It’s just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here.”

Limbaugh presented the departure as more of an inconvenience than a proper response to imminent danger.

“You know, I had to cancel a bunch of stuff,” he said. “I was going to go to a private movie screening this afternoon, and I had a bunch of stuff to do tonight, and now that’s all blown to smithereens.”

Limbaugh didn’t say the magic words, but on Tuesday he basically accused the media of creating fake news about Hurricane Irma, which is threatening Florida after hitting Barbuda and Antigua. The storm’s 185-mile-per-hour winds tied the record high for any Atlantic hurricane making landfall.

“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they’re reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean’s having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”