Kristi Noem treated FEMA as an adversary. Then came a massive winter storm

[Eugene]

Source: CNN

Kristi Noem treated FEMA as an adversary. Then came a massive winter storm

Jan 30, 2026
PUBLISHED Jan 30, 2026, 5:00 AM ET
By Gabe Cohen

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem strode into the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters last week, ahead of a monster winter storm that walloped much of the country, she caught staffers buzzing around the agency’s response center off guard.

“I was shocked she showed up after all the sh*t we’ve been put through and what she’s said,” one FEMA official told CNN, adding that you could hear a pin drop in the center that day.

For the past year, Noem has been one of FEMA’s loudest critics, calling the disaster response agency partisan, bloated and broken; vowing to “clean house”; and even threatening to eliminate it altogether. FEMA insiders say her reforms and rhetoric have tanked morale and driven out thousands of disaster workers, including dozens of experienced senior leaders.

But on this day, she sounded more like a coach before a big game, rallying the staff to “lean forward” and help Americans weather the storm with a robust federal response, three sources with firsthand knowledge told CNN.

For many inside FEMA, it was a jaw-dropping about-face ...

-snip-

Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/30/politics/kristi-noem-fema-winter-storm