Overview

• Officials say a new policy required Noem’s personal approval for DHS expenditures over $100,000 and reportedly delayed Urban Search and Rescue deployments for more than 72 hours after central Texas floods.
• CNN sources report that FEMA had just 86 personnel on the ground by Monday night, a figure that rose to 311 by Tuesday night.
• The Department of Homeland Security declared that every call from flood survivors was answered urgently and that no call center contractors were fired during the response.
• FEMA says it deployed 311 federal staff in coordination with 2,100 Texas responders across 20 agencies and helped save more than 850 lives.
• Lawmakers including Rep. Jared Moskowitz have demanded a formal investigation into the decision-making process and called for Secretary Noem’s resignation over alleged protocol deviations.