Kristi Noem accelerated millions of aid in the event of a disaster to the tourist attraction of Florida after the campaign donor intervened

This story appeared for the first time in Propublica, an award -winning investigation room Pulitzer. Register for the Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this in your reception box.

For months, complaints came in certain parts of the country struck by natural disasters: the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved far too slowly in sending communities ravaged by floods and hurricanes, including in center of Texas and North Carolina. Many officials blame Kristi Noem, the interior security secretary, whose agency supervises FEMA.

“I cannot recover phone calls,” said Ted Budd, the Republican Senator of Caroline du Nord, said this month, describing her attempts to reach Noem’s office. “I cannot lead them to initiate the money. He’s just a quagmire. ” The delays were partly caused by a new policy announced by the DHS which requires the personal signature of Noem on spending of more than $ 100,000, several media reported.

But the files obtained by Propublica show how a locality has found a way to get the help of FEMA more quickly: he asked one of Noem’s political donors.

The files show that Noem quickly accelerated more than $ 11 million federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after being contacted by a large financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the rich enclave of the Gulf coast and was seriously damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

Personal city officials have been working for months, without success, to obtain assistance in the event of a disaster. But only two weeks after the donor entry, they celebrated their sudden change in fortune. “We are now at the speed of the chain with FEMA,” wrote a city official in an email. A FEMA representative wrote: “By investigation of leadership, immediately pushing the project.”

With accelerating money, Noem flew to Naples on a government plane to visit the pier itself. She then stayed on the weekend and dined with the donor, the local cardiologist Sinan Gursy, at the French Bleu Provence restaurant, according to the files and an interview with the mayor of Naples. This account is based on text messages and e-mails that propublica obtained via requests for public files.

Noem’s actions in Naples suggest that the injection of political favoritism to an agency responsible for saving lives and rebuilding communities destroyed by a disaster. This also increases the concerns about the discretionary power that Noem presented itself by personally managing the six expenses to the agency, consolidating its power over which wins and loses in the pursuit of federal emergency dollars, experts said.

Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preadss at the University of Columbia, said politics for a long time a federal aid factor in the event of a disaster – a study has revealed that swing states are more likely to obtain federal aid, for example. But “I have not heard of anything of Cecidal-a donor calling and saying that I need help and get it,” he said, “while others can be refused help or another expectation to get help that can come or not.”

In a statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: “This has nothing to do with politics: secretary Noem also visited Ruidoso, NM” – where the floods killed three people in July – “at the request of a Democratic governor and was an integral part of supporting and accelerating their recovery efforts.”

“Your criticism of the visit of the secretary to the pier is weird while working to solve this problem for more than a million visitors who visited the pier,” added McLaughlin. She did not answer questions about the role of the donor in accelerating the funding or relationship of Noem with him. Reached by phone, Gursoy said “getting lost” and hung up. He did not answer detailed follow -up questions.

Noem was criticized for creating a bottleneck at FEMA. When the floods hit Texas this summer – finally killing more than 100 people – it took days to deploy critical research and rescue teams because Noem had not signed on them, according to CNN. Budd, the Republican senator, said this month: “Above all that is linked to Hélène is more than $ 100,000. They therefore accumulate on his desk while waiting for her signature.”

Noem denied that there were delays in the response of the Texas floods and defended its spending policy, saying that it had saved billions of dollars. “Every day, I get up and I think the Americans pay for that, if?” She recently said. “And these dollars do what the law says they should do?” I will make sure they are going there. “

Formerly a sleeping city of fishermen, Naples now houses CEOs and billionaires (a property listed for $ 295 million recently made the headlines as the most expensive house in the United States). The city is known as an important judgment for republican politicians collecting funds, and Noem organized several fundraising in the region. State credit card files suggest that it has visited Naples at least 10 times in the past four years as governor of southern Dakota.

Noem’s best advisor, Corey Lewandowski, also seems to have a house in Naples near the city pier, according to land tax files. Lewandowski is an unpaid staff member at DHS as Noem chief of staff. (Media reports allegedly alleged that the two were romantically involved, which they both denied.) Lewandowski told Propublica that he was not involved in the throw of the pier and that he was not in Naples during the visit of Noem.

During the first seven months of the Trump administration, the reconstruction of the pier took place in bureaucratic purgatory. The city has long been struggling to obtain the regulatory approvals it needed to start building, and emails suggest that Trump’s federal dismissal wave had made the process even slower. “These agencies are undergoing significant reorganizations and staff discounts,” said a city official to a frustrated constituent in early August. This “sometimes means starting again with new criticisms – something we have confronted more than once.”

McLaughlin said that “the previous fema and the responsibility of the city” for delays. She has listed “several failures” since the start of the process in 2023, notably “FEMA staff” and indecision by the city government.

This summer, Naples officials became desperate. In June, we tried to enlist Senator Rick Scott, r-fla., To put pressure on the fema to move forward. “We were told yesterday that the secretary Noem should” personally “approve the PIR project before the FEMA finance”, wrote the city manager to the senator staff. The mayor of Naples, Teresa Heitmann, also wrote personally to FEMA. Heitmann said she was “perplexed” by delays and begged the advisory agency.

Heitmann had long paid costly consultants in Washington to help his city sail in the process. But she “felt more and more helpless,” she said later, until she had the idea that would finally put her project on the fast path. On July 18, the mayor sent himself by email to Google research: “Who is the head of internal security?” She was going to go directly to Noem.

Heitmann determined that his best bet to attract the attention of Noem was Gursy. Cardiologist from Naples, Gursy has no obvious experience to work with the federal government; Much of his online footprint focuses on his enthusiasm to freak him out. But Gurshy gave Noem at least $ 25,000 to support his campaign for the governor in 2022. It was enough to put him near the list of disclosed donors from Noem. (In the southern Dakota, the contributions of the campaign remain relatively low.))

On the planning of documents for the National Republican Convention 2024 obtained by Propublica, the doctor of Florida is listed as a participant affiliated with the delegation of southern Dakota, a state to which he has no apparent link in addition to his support for Noem. Heitmann told Propublica that Gursy had presented Noem to him at a political event in a private house in Naples while Noem was governor.

“Hello it’s Teresa,” sent a text to the mayor at the beginning of August. “I really need your help.” She explained the tangle of the bureaucracy with which she had faced. “FEMA holds us in place,” wrote Heitmann. “Kristi Noem could set fire under the employees of the Fema relaxing.”

Gursy replied: “Okay. I’m going to get there.”

The following week, on August 11, the doctor gave Heitmann an update. “Kristi had left for a few days for the first time in a long time, so I left him alone,” he said. “I just txied it now.” Within 24 hours, he had exciting news. He told the mayor to expect a call from the “FEMA Fixter” of Noem shortly.

The identity of the “fixer” is not clear, but on August 27, the officials of Naples saw a “wave of activity” of the Naem agency. That day, a member of FEMA staff told the city that “FEMA intended to accelerate funding” for the pier. “Secretary Noem has taken immediate action when I contacted helping help,” said the mayor on Facebook quickly.

Two days later, Noem flew to Naples. His schedule has scored a 30-minute walk at the pier with the mayor, followed by an appointment and a dinner with Provence blue, which serves the Wagyu short ribs and the liver foie gras. Noem then stayed throughout the weekend at Naples Bay Resort & Marina four stars. Heitmann told Propublica that she was not at the French dinner but Gursy was. “I did not ask her to come, but she showed up,” the mayor told The Local News. “I was very impressed.”

Before leaving the city, Noem posted on the Naples jetty on Instagram. She finally put the project on the right track, she said. “Americans deserve better than years of paperwork and responses to failed disasters,” wrote Noem. “Under @potus Trump, this incompetence ends.”

The DHS did not answer questions about the question of whether the government has paid Noem’s weekend in Naples.

Do you have any information that we should know about Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski or DHS? Josh Kaplan can be attached by e-mail to joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Justin Elliott can be attached by e-mail to justin@propublica.org and by signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.