Noem takes heat on Texas amid doubts over FEMA flood response

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is under fire amid reports of a botched disaster response effort in Texas, one that the editorial board of the state’s biggest newspaper is comparing to the debacle that followed Hurricane Katrina.

“Heck of a job, Secretary Noem,” The Houston Chronicle’s editorial board wrote on Monday, riffing on former President George W. Bush’s notorious praise of then-Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Michael Brown as New Orleans flooded.

The editors joined Democratic members of Congress — including Sens. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Chris Murphy (Md.) and Ed Markey (Mass), as well as Texas Reps. Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett — in calling for investigations into Noem’s handling of FEMA, an agency both she and President Trump have previously talked about closing, amid reports of poor response times and local volunteers filling in for federal responders.

On Tuesday, Markey called for Noem’s resignation, describing her handling of the floods as “an absolute disgrace.”

In a video posted on X, Murphy said that FEMA had begun to look like “a PR agency for the Secretary of Homeland Security, not an actual disaster response agency.”

Rafael Lemaitre, FEMA director of public affairs under former President Obama, said Trump and Noem’s vision for FEMA — one where it exists mostly to back up state responses — is largely already reality.

The Trump administration, he said, "is in denial about the role of FEMA, the improvements that FEMA has made since Hurricane Katrina — not only in its ability to respond better to disasters, but to help communities prepare for them in an era of increased severity and frequency in disasters.”

Since the reforms after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, FEMA has functioned as a support service for local officials, who must request its aid and run the disaster response themselves.

“If there ever was a federal agency built not to tell states how to handle things but to support them when needed, it’s FEMA, which only kicks in when a state’s capacity is exceeded, whether in response, recovery, mitigation, or preparedness,” Lemaitre said. “Governors, red or blue, are in charge. They ask for what they need, and we provide it.”

He argued that the administration is undoing the post-Katrina reforms, starting with its new head, David Richardson, who is under fire for his failure to make any public statements or appearances for more than a week after the floods.

Richardson, who runs FEMA part time, is the first agency head since Brown without any background in disaster response. Under the Post-Katrina law requiring FEMA heads to have at least five years of disaster management experience, he would be disqualified — but as acting head, he’s exempt.

On Wednesday, at the inaugural Hill Nation Summit in Washington, Noem told NewsNation’s Blake Burman that Trump’s “vision for FEMA is that we would empower states to be able to respond to their constituents much more than what FEMA has done in the past.”

“In Texas,” she told Burman, the agency “cut through the bureaucratic red tape and the rules and regulations that were left over from the Biden administration so that we immediately pre-deployed millions of dollars to Texas so that they could run their response.”

Over the weekend, Noem attacked the press reports of a poor response in Texas, insisting on “Fox and Friends” that the reporting of FEMA delays are “fake news” and “absolute trash.” 

She told NBC News that “it’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life, and so many people’s lives have turned upside down, that people are playing politics with this, because the response time was immediate.”

Pressed on reports of low response rates at FEMA hotlines, Noem said she didn’t believe the numbers and challenged anonymous sources to come forward.

In a statement to The Hill, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin decried reporting that the agency had been slow to deploy teams as “lies” and “an unapparelled display of activist journalism.”

"Within moments of the flooding in Texas, DHS [Department of Homeland Security] assets, including the U.S. Coast Guard, tactical Border Patrol units and FEMA personnel surged into unprecedented action alongside Texas first responders," McLaughlin said.

"By Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers, providing support and shelter for hundreds of people," she added.

McLaughlin argued that calls to dismantle the agency had been metaphorical. Under the new administration, she said, “It’s no secret that FEMA, as it is today, will no longer exist.” In what has now become a mantra of Noem’s tenure, she added that the agency “is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief.”

That message has also been embraced by Trump’s Republican allies in Texas. In a press conference on Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) agreed with the administration that FEMA needed to be “what I call rightsized so that it would be more nimble, quicker in response — understanding it’s the locals that know what’s best in responding to a disaster.”

But this description of the future course of the agency looks a lot like how it has traditionally looked, former disaster management professionals have told The Hill. 

“They try to equate FEMA with red tape, but that's a red herring, because that's not how the disaster response system has been set up, particularly since Katrina,” Lemaitre said.

FEMA has lost 25 percent of staff since Trump took office, cuts worsened after the floods when hundreds of call center contractors were let go, according to The New York Times.

That followed reporting from CNN that Noem waited 72 hours to send FEMA disaster response teams to Kerr County — because under her leadership, the agency has to get her approval for every expenditure over $100,000. 

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson called CNN's reporting "absolute hogwash."

Given the funds that FEMA works with and the size of Noem’s purview at the department, the reported delays are “really, really upsetting,” said Candace Valenzuela, who ran the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the region that includes Texas under then-President Biden.

“It just reeks of looking at things granularly, and not understanding that this is a massive country, and doing it at that level just does not work — or wanting to pick winners and losers,” Valenzuela said.

One impact of Noem’s new mandate seems to be fewer federal personnel on the ground than in past disasters. In far western Travis County, where devastating floods killed more than a dozen people, even Judge Andy Brown, the county’s chief executive, isn’t clear what role FEMA is playing.

While Brown declared a local disaster the day of the floods, Trump didn’t approve it until nearly a week later, and, as of Tuesday, Brown had seen just one uniformed FEMA official on the ground.

“As far as I know, they have not set up that station where people can walk in, ask questions to FEMA and apply for things,” he told The Hill.