As Texas Families Reported Missing Children, Noem Posted on Instagram and Blocked FEMA Aid
While families begged FEMA for help during deadly floods, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delayed contracts for five days — posting selfies and attending ceremonies instead.
On July 5, 2025, deadly floods swept through Central Texas as families frantically called FEMA to report missing children and loved ones. That same day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem let FEMA’s contracts with private call centers expire. The move abruptly dismissed hundreds of contractors who had been fielding nearly all survivor calls. Although FEMA answered almost every one of more than 3,000 calls that day, Noem then waited five full days to approve contract renewals, leaving thousands of desperate callers — many reporting missing children — stranded without help, according to The Daily Beast.
From Peak Response to Collapse
On July 5, FEMA answered 3,018 of 3,027 calls, a 99.7 percent response rate thanks to four private call center companies and their trained staff. That night, however, Noem’s policy requiring her personal approval for any DHS expense over $100,000 blocked the renewals and gutted FEMA operations.
Service collapsed almost immediately. On July 6, FEMA answered only 846 of 2,363 calls, or 36 percent. By July 7, with calls surging to over 16,000, the agency answered just 2,613 calls, under 16 percent, according to The New York Times records cited by The Daily Beast.
FEMA officials said, “We couldn’t move on those requests due to the $100,000 restriction,” according to The Washington Post.
One veteran underscored the stakes: “During response we need things approved in minutes and hours.” Another added: “Anything longer will result in deaths,” both reported by The Washington Post.
Families With Missing Children Left Waiting
The floods killed at least 128 people and left more than 150 missing, including many children swept away in rivers, Kerr County officials said. In those crucial early days, families called FEMA repeatedly, reporting missing relatives, pleading for rescues, and asking for updates — but their calls went largely unanswered.
Many waited helplessly. Hours slipped away as they wondered if anyone would ever pick up. One FEMA official called it a “major breakdown,” adding that the delay left people “on hold at the worst moment of their lives,” according to The Daily Beast.
Even as families kept calling in vain, Noem’s attention remained elsewhere — focused on social media and ceremonial events in Washington instead of signing the contracts that could have restored help.
Noem’s Washington Focus
While thousands of families clung to lifelines, Noem stayed in Washington enforcing her rule that no DHS contract over $100,000 could proceed without her personal signature. During those five days she posted smiling selfies on Instagram, asked followers which portrait to hang in her office, and attended ceremonial events at DHS headquarters, reported by Yahoo News.
Her social media activity showed her focused on office decor while FEMA officials scrambled for approvals. Meanwhile, phones in Texas kept ringing unanswered as survivors clung to hope and the death toll climbed.
Critics inside FEMA described her policy as a crippling bottleneck. One senior official said it “absolutely hampered” the agency’s ability to respond, according to Axios. FEMA staff even had to divert resources to create a new “tiger team” — a special data group — just to work around the bottleneck during the disaster, The Washington Post reported.
Noem did not sign the renewed contracts for call centers, housing inspectors, and mental health services until late Thursday, July 10, five full days after terminating the contractors. Those contracts totaled only about $1.6 million, yet still required her approval, according to The Washington Post.
Delayed Rescue Teams as the Death Toll Rose
The same bottleneck also delayed FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue teams, which did not arrive in the Hill Country until late Monday, July 8, more than 72 hours after the floods began, despite FEMA’s standard response time of 24 to 48 hours, according to CNN via The Washington Post. Internal FEMA emails revealed that securing Noem’s approval for deployment was “never part of the process previously” and was “absolutely hampering our ability to provide immediate assistance,” as reported by Axios.
By Monday night, only 86 FEMA staffers were in Texas. By Tuesday, the number rose to 311, still far behind comparable disasters like the Maui wildfires and Hurricane Helene, where FEMA deployed thousands of staff within 48 hours, Axios reported.
Unlike those rapid responses, Noem’s policy left Texas waiting days for help as the death toll mounted.
The Human Cost of Delay
The stark contrast between Noem’s public activities and the private anguish of families sharpened criticism. While parents begged FEMA to help find their missing children, Noem was posting on Instagram and attending ceremonies instead of signing approvals.
What might have been defended as cost control now appears to many as dereliction of duty. Every hour she spent curating her public image and delaying approvals was another hour families in Texas waited on hold, many never getting through, as time ran out to save their loved ones.
As one FEMA veteran put it: “During response we need things approved in minutes. Anything longer will result in deaths,” The Washington Post reported.
It won't be very long (hopefully) before Noem's makeup and hair becomes an issue, since she apparently spends hours on it every day, instead of providing ANY type of benefit for Americans.
I think that makeup (and the three AI "portraits" of a Jennifer Aniston cosplayer) will become galling to Americans, and perhaps that will even transfer to "manly" Trump and his increasingly raccoon eyes.
We Americans can be as petty as anyone...when our very lives depend on it.
Thank you.
She is nothing more than a publicity seeking cunt!
There! I said it!