Exclusive: Search-and-rescue units respond without tornado-tracking tool after Noem's team let contract lapse

[demmiblue]

Source: CNN

As deadly tornadoes tore through the Midwest and Plains last weekend, state and local search-and-rescue crews rushed to the devastated areas to look for survivors. It wasn’t until the teams deployed that they realized they were operating without a critical tornado-tracking tool typically provided by FEMA.

That left responders with a less precise picture of where to search first, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.

The mapping tool pinpoints a tornado’s path of destruction within minutes of touchdown, helping responders focus on the hardest-hit neighborhoods as quickly as possible. Even in storms where FEMA itself doesn’t respond, state and local rescuers rely on the mapping tool, which is provided to them through the agency.

But it wasn’t available this time, because FEMA’s roughly $200,000 contract with the company that provides the data expired in February, and the agency’s request to renew it is still moving through Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s strict spending-approval process, according to the two sources and internal documents reviewed by CNN.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/13/politics/fema-response-tornado-tracking-tool-kristi-noem

[tanyev]

1. Not a lot of time between all of Noem's media appearances and locked door "consultations"

with Lewandowski to get her to focus on contracts that help people.

[erronis]

4. And who knows what was going on behind those locked doors... Well, we can make a good guess.

[underpants]

2. More - "wasteful spending "? The State of the Union speech

Billions of dollars in contracts and grants have stalled at the agency in recent months pending approval by Noem and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as the Trump administration seeks to rein in wasteful spending and shift more responsibility for disaster response to states.

When DHS partially shut down last month, Noem directed FEMA to scale back to “bare-minimum, life-saving operations only.” In a follow-up email to the agency’s regional leaders, Karen Evans wrote that “all activities at FEMA need to cease.”

The email, which CNN obtained, carved out four exceptions: work tied to President Trump’s State of the Union address, immediate response to the recent winter storms, meetings connected to the World Cup and Olympics and “Nuclear activities.”

The directives were unusual, officials inside the agency said, as much of FEMA’s work typically continues uninterrupted during government shutdowns because it’s funded through the Disaster Relief Fund – a separate pot of money Congress provides for disasters and emergencies.

Nonetheless, work stopped immediately for some workers, seven FEMA officials in various parts of the country told CNN.

[PatSeg]

3. $200,000?

And she spent $200 MILLION on two Gulfstream G700 private jets!

[angrychair]

5. She spent over $200 million

On that media campaign with the eight day old company with no address and no website.

(For reference, the Academy award winning movie Oppenheimer only cost $125 million to make)

[PatSeg]

8. Oh yes, that's right

How does someone spend $220 million on a media campaign? That's insane.

[angrychair]

9. A very good question

And one I hope federal prosecutors ask her one day

[Mysterian]

6. MAGA government is totally incompetent

because MAGA stooges are as stupid as rocks.

[WestMichRad]

7. Real time warnings for those in the path of tornadoes is also lacking.

I was following live YouTube coverage of Tuesday’s storms. (I know of at least two, “Max Velocity” and Ryan Hall, who anchor such coverage.) The one I was watching, in at least two cases for storms moving through Illinois and Indiana, projected developing tornadoes from radar and had storm chasers visually confirming tornado funnel clouds on the ground BEFORE the National Weather Service had even issued any watches or warnings to people in the affected areas.

The anchor guy expressed amazement at the lack of official warnings, but he didn’t get into it any further as storms were popping all over the place, in a long area from Texas to Indiana, at the time.

Appalling “service” from our NWS.

[progressoid]

10. Those tornadoes are obviously DEI.