Tarini Parti of The Wall Street Journal noted that Noem was "leaving out what actually happened." "Based on our reporting, we know that at DHS, there was widespread confusion about how they should respond, how they should move resources," Parti said.
She added that a policy requiring Noem to review any spending over $100,000 played a role in slowing the response time. "They also didn't pre-position assets close to the impacted area as they have done in past disasters, so they weren't able to quickly move assets and resources in,” Parti said.