Noem praises Texas flood response as model for Trump’s FEMA reform

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that the federal response to the deadly floods in Texas Hill Country last weekend was a good indication of the improved disaster response the Trump administration is committed to providing.

Devastating floods on the Fourth of July claimed at least 119 lives, and more than 150 others are missing. Among those killed were 27 girls attending Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas.

“What you saw from our response in Texas is going to be a lot of how President [Donald] Trump envisions what [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] (FEMA) would look like in the future,” Noem said during a news conference Saturday. 

“We did things in Texas, in response, very different than Joe Biden.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP, FIRST LADY HEAD TO VISIT KERRVILLE, TEXAS FOLLOWING FATAL FLOODS

In response to the 2023 Ohio train derailment in East Palestine, the Biden administration said the chemical disaster did not meet legal requirements for a FEMA disaster declaration, waiting two weeks to deploy a team to assist.

In the 2023 Maui fires, more than 100 people were killed, and historic Lahaina was reduced to rubble. Survivors were left without food, water and shelter.

At the time, FEMA Administrator Michael Brown called President Joe Biden’s response to the deadly fires “an abject failure.”

Displaced residents Caroline Anthony and Lori Brodeur pause while searching for personal items in the rubble of a wildfire that destroyed their home Oct. 5, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Slow responses and inadequate aid were also widely reported after Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina in late 2024. 

“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” Trump said in January while visiting North Carolina. “I think, frankly, FEMA is not good.”

DEADLY TEXAS FLOOD EXPOSES ‘NEGLECTED’ WEATHER ALERT SYSTEM TRUMP AIMS TO MODERNIZE

Search and rescue teams work in Kerrville, Texas, July 9. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

Noem noted that, during the most recent disaster, federal assistance was on the ground in Texas as soon as the flooding hit.

“We deployed our Coast Guard, helicopters, [aircraft] and swift water rescue teams out of Customs and Border Protection,” she said. “Our [Border Patrol Tactical Unit] (BORTAC) teams, which I like to call the Department of Homeland Security’s ninjas, are specifically trained for situations like that, where the unprecedented is happening.”

After the floods, Noem said she immediately met with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and spoke with him about getting a major disaster declaration signed.

Within an hour or two of the request, she said, it was approved by the White House.

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott meet with local emergency services personnel as they survey flood damage along the Guadalupe River Friday in Kerrville, Texas. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“We pre-deployed dollars right to Texas so that they can make the best decisions responding to their people,” Noem said. “FEMA has never done that before — pre-deployed dollars to a state so that they could use that to save their people, so they could use that to go out and save lives.”

Noem said the president wants the states to be empowered during emergencies.

GOV. ABBOTT DEMANDS COMPREHENSIVE OVERHAUL OF TEXAS FLOOD WARNING SYSTEMS AS DEATH TOLL RISES

“Emergencies are locally executed,” she said. “They are state-managed and then the federal government comes in and supports you. [No one] ever wants to sit back and wait for someone from the federal government to show up and rescue you out of your house because that, in the past, has not served people well under the Biden administration.

Under President Trump, Noem said, federal officials were there immediately to help local and state officials manage the response.

Multiple Texas flood victims have been confirmed dead by families, including some of the girls who went missing from Camp Mystic when the Guadalupe River flooded July 4. (Fox News)

She added her belief that FEMA “will cease to exist the way that it is today.”

“We are fundamentally reforming that agency,” Noem said. “President Trump may want to, in his prerogative, as he likes to do, rename things. He may come up with a new name for this agency that reflects the fundamental change that’s going to happen there. But this agency will no longer be the bureaucratic agency where people have to wait 20 years for their claim to be paid. 

“It will be an agency that immediately says to that state, and to that local emergency management director, ‘What do you need? How can we support you?’ And then trains them to have the skill set that they need to be serving their people immediately, because they’re always there faster. They’re right there on the streets.”

It is unclear what the new agency name might be.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump listen during a roundtable discussion with first responders and local officials at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville, Texas, after observing flood damage Friday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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When asked about reports of calls to FEMA from Texas residents going unanswered, Noem said she was “throwing the bull—- flag,” claiming she did not think that was true.

“I will get rid of any contract that doesn’t respond to people because they know they are empowered to do it,” she said.

FEMA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.