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.”
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.”
