No, it is not normal at all. You are talking about a relief package to help people rebuild. Those come later. This article is talking about search and rescue teams. Those teams go in as soon as possible to help find and rescue people.
“In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these [search and rescue] teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN,” reported Gabe Cohen and Michael Williams. However, “even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets.”
That approval came on Monday. Apparently she doesn’t work weekends.
Usually, you have a National weather service that estimates rainfall for an area and warns you about possible disasters so you can issue warnings and pre-stage response teams… Wonder what happened to all that.
the Weather Service employee whose job it was to make sure those warnings got traction — Paul Yura, the long-serving meteorologist in charge of “warning coordination” — had recently taken an unplanned early retirement amid cuts pushed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He was not replaced.
No, it is not normal at all. You are talking about a relief package to help people rebuild. Those come later. This article is talking about search and rescue teams. Those teams go in as soon as possible to help find and rescue people.
That approval came on Monday. Apparently she doesn’t work weekends.
Usually, you have a National weather service that estimates rainfall for an area and warns you about possible disasters so you can issue warnings and pre-stage response teams… Wonder what happened to all that.
According to the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/opinion/texas-floods-nws.html