For months, complaints came from a part of the country affected by natural disasters: the Federal Emergency Agency was moving too slowly, sending assistance to communities destroyed by floods and hurricanes, including Central Texas and North Carolina. Many officials accused Christie Noah, the secretary secretary whose agency oversees FEMA.
“I can’t return phone calls,” Ted Bud, Republican Senator from North Carolina, told the newspaper This month, describing your attempts to reach the NoEM office. “I can’t force them to initiate money. It’s just a quagmire.” Delay were caused by partially new policy announced by DHS report.
But the records obtained by Propublica show how one settlement found a way to get the help of FEMA faster: he asked for one of Nem’s political donors.
The records show that NOEM quickly accelerated more than $ 11 million for federal money to restore the historical marina in Naples, Florida, after a large financial supporter appealed last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Persian Gulf coast and was badly damaged by the hurricane in 2022.
Disappointed city authorities worked for months without success to get help in natural disasters. But only two weeks after the donor entered, they noted the sudden change of happiness. “We are now at WARP speed with FEMA,” one city official wrote in an e -mail. The Fema spokesman wrote: “According to the leadership instructions, the project immediately pushes.”
Along with the quick tracking of money, Nom flew into Naples on the state aircraft to go on the pier on his own. She then stayed on the weekend and dinner with a donor, local cardiologist Sinan Gursy, at the French restaurant Blue ProvenceAccording to records and interviews with the mayor of Naples. This account is based on text messages and PROPBLICA emails obtained through public record requests.
Nomol’s actions in Naples suggest the injection of political favoritism into an agency, which is instructed to save the life and restoration of communities destroyed by the catastrophe. It also enhances concern about the opinion that NOEM has expressed, personally addressing all six -digit expenses in the agency, consolidating its power over whoever wins and loses in the pursuit of federal aid dollars, experts said.
Jeffrey Schlegelih, Director of the National Disaster preparations at the Colombian University, said the policy has long become a factor in the elimination of the federal disaster – one study found that, for example, the states are likely to receive federal assistance. But “I haven’t heard anything from this outrageous – a donor who calls and say that I need help and getting,” he said, “while others may be refusing to help or otherwise wait for help that may not come.
In her statement, the DHS press secretary McLeaflin said: “It has nothing to do with politics: Nom’s secretary also visited Rudas, New York, where three people were killed in the Flood -” at the request of the Democrat governor and was an integral part of support and acceleration. “
“Your criticism of the secretary’s visit at the bizarre’s pier, because she is working to fix the issue for more than 1 million visitors who previously visited the marina,” McLaflin added. She did not answer questions about the role of the donor in accelerating funding or NOEM relations with him. When he got on the phone, Gursy said “lost” and put the phone. He did not answer the following questions.
Noem is criticized for creating a narrow place in Fema. When the floods hit Texas this summer-in end, more than 100 people were killed to expand critical search and salvation teams because Nom did not subscribe to them, According to CNN. Buddha, a republican senator, said this month: “To a great extent, everything related to Helen is more than $ 100,000. So they put on her table, waiting for her signature.”
Nom denied that in Texas in Texas and defended her spending policy, saying it was Saved billions Dollars. “Every day I get up and I think the American people pays for it, right?” she Recently said. “And these dollars do what the law says what they should do? I’m going to make sure they go there.”
Once the sleepy fishing city, in Naples now live executives and billionaires (property listed for 295 million dollars Recently made headlines as the most expensive home in the US). The city is known as an important stop for republican politicians who raise money and NOEM has held several funds in the area. State Credit Card Records Suggest that she has visited Naples at least 10 times in the last four years as Southern Dakota Governor.
The best Advisor Nome, Kora Lewandowski, also appears to have a home in Naples near the city marina, according to real estate tax records. Lewandowski is an unpaid DHS officer who performs the duties of the actual chief of staff of NOEM. (Media report that they are two romantically involvedWhich they both denied.) Lewandowski said Propublica that he did not participate in the decision on the marina and that he was not in Naples during Noem’s visit.
In the first seven months of the Trump administration, reconstruction of the pier was in bureaucratic cleaning. The city has long fought for ensuring the regulations needed to create construction, and emails believe that a wave of federal layoffs made this process even slower. “These agencies are undergoing significant reorganizations and staff reorganizing,” the city official said with a disappointed voter in early August. This “sometimes means that it starts with new reviewers – what we face more than once.”
McLaflin said that “both the past FEMA and the city are responsible” for delays. It has listed “several setbacks” since the process began in 2023, including “FEMA staff” and indecision of urban government.
Before that summer, Naples officials began to despair. In June, one tried to enlist Senator Rick Scott, Flrary, press FEMA to move forward. “We were told yesterday that the secretary of Nem will have to” personally “approve the draft project before FEMA financing is obliged,” the city official wrote to the senator. The mayor of Naples Teresa Hitman also wrote Fema personally. Hitman said the delays were “surprised” and asked for the agency for leadership.
Hitman has long paid expensive consultants in Washington to help her city navigate the process. But she “felt more helpless,” she later said, until the idea, which finally put her project on a quick road. On July 18, the mayor e -mail search in Google: “Who is the head of the internal security?” She was going to go straight to Noah.
Hitman determined that her best rate on Nom’s attention was Gurs. The cardiologist in Naples Gursy has no obvious experience with the federal government; Most of his online lines focus on his enthusiasm for Pinbol. But Gursy gave NOEM at least $ 25,000 to support the governor’s company in 2022. That was enough to put it in the top of the open list of NOEM donors. (In South Dakota, the company’s deposits remain relatively small.)
When planning documents for the Republican National Convention of 2024, received by Propublica, Florida doctor refers to a member related to a delegation with South Dakota, a state with which he has no obvious connection except for his support for Noem. Hitman told Propublica that Gursy introduced her to Noah at a political event in Naples while NOEM was the governor.
“Hi, this is Teresa,” the mayor sent the Gursoma in early August. “I really need your help.” She explained the ball of bureaucracy she fought with. “Fema holds us,” Haith wrote. “Christie Noah can catch fire under FEMA staff.”
Gursy replied, “Okay. I’ll go for it.”
Next week, August 11, the doctor gave heitmann update. “For the first time in a long time, Christie went, so I left her alone,” he said. “I just went now.” For 24 hours he had exciting news. He told the mayor to wait for the call from “Fema Fixer” Nome.
The “correction” person is not clear, but by August 27, Naples officials saw a “flurry” from the NOEM agency. On that day, FEMA employee told the city that “FEMA intends to speed up the financing” for the marina. “The secretary of NOM took immediate action when I sought help,” the mayor soon posted on Facebook.
Two days later, Noem flew to Naples. In her schedule, the mayor included a 30-minute walk on the marina with the mayor and then meeting with nails and dinner in Bleu Provence, which serves short ribs of Wagyu and stabbed Foie Gras. Then Noah stayed on the weekend in four -star Resort and Marina Nepil -bei. Haithman told Propublica that she was not in the French dinner, but Gurs was. “I didn’t ask her to come, but she appeared,” said the mayor of the local news. “I was very impressed.”
Before she left the city, Nom placed near Naples In Instagram. She finally returned the project, she said. “Americans deserve better than years of red tape and unsuccessful reactions to the disaster,” Noah wrote. “Under @potus Trump this incompetence ends.”
DHS did not answer the questions about whether the government paid for the weekend in Naples.
Do you have any information we need to know about Christie Noah, Cora Lewandowski or DHS? Josh Kaplan can be e -mail via email joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Justin Elliott can be e -mail via email Justin@propublica.org and signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.
