Governor Larry Rhoden’s first executive order of 2026 declares an emergency due to the December 17 windstorm that, among other chaos, knocked out power around the Black Hills and made a mess as Custer State Park. The emergency declaration allows South Dakota to seek helpful handouts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
If he wants to see any FEMA cash before next winter, Governor Rhoden better get some big donors to call Kristi Noem, since no FEMA deals over $100K happen without Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s personal say-so… and since she’s so busy with photo ops, FEMA funds are all backed up:
More than $900 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants and loans are awaiting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s approval under her controversial policy of personally reviewing major expenditures, an agency source told The Hill.
This represents a significant backlog at the emergency management agency, which provides funding that both helps communities prepare for disasters and assists with short- and long-term recovery.
This is in line with a figure reported last week by an “Alt-FEMA” Substack newsletter. The newsletter’s inaugural edition earlier this year was signed by an anonymous FEMA employee “on behalf of the Alt-FEMA Editorial Team” [Rachel Frazin, “At FEMA, $900 Million in Grants, Loans Awaits Noem’s Approval,” The Hill, 2025.12.19].
And if South Dakota ever needs FEMA to send actual physical resources to help clean up a disaster, Noem is making sure we’re really hosed:
The Trump administration is abruptly cutting dozens of disaster response and recovery staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency this week, according to internal emails obtained by CNN and sources familiar with the plan.
On New Year’s Eve, some employees received emails saying their positions “would not be renewed” and “therefore, your services will no longer be needed” after their contracts expire in the first days of January.
The cuts target FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) teams, which form the backbone of the agency’s operations during and after a disaster, and could be just the beginning of a larger effort by Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security to shrink FEMA.
…FEMA’s CORE employees are among the first federal boots on the ground during a disaster, working shoulder-to-shoulder with local officials, helping survivors and managing the crucial aid and grants that fuel recovery and rebuilding.
“FEMA can’t do disaster response and recovery without CORE employees,” a former senior FEMA official told CNN. “The regional offices are almost entirely CORE staff, so the first FEMA people who are usually onsite won’t be there. The impact is states are on their own” [Gabe Cohen, “DHS Begins Slashing FEMA Disaster Response Staff as 2026 Begins,” CNN, 2026.01.02].
Governor Rhoden’s second executive order should declare an ongoing state of emergency in South Dakota to recognize that Kristi Noem is making sure that when disaster strikes, no one will come to help.
They’ve stopped any emergency money for blue states who pay for everyone. The blue states need to block the money they pay to the Dictatorship.
Recall that an Earth hating former governor of South Dakota built a house in a swamp that flooded resulting in a generous self-reimbursement from insurance coverage underwritten by his own company then blamed the US Army Corps of Engineers.
That happened in 2011 to McCook Lake, too and everybody in the area knew it was going to happen again so it did in 2022. In 2022 South Dakota was tied for first place with three other horrible red states where the loss amounts from disasters likely caused with human influence a billion+ dollars in damage since 1980. North Dakota had 45 billion-dollar climate disasters since 1980 and my home state had suffered 38 and is still getting pounded.
Despite the Federal Emergency Management Agency not having finalized flood risk the State of South Dakota aimed floodwaters at McCook Lake because Republicans know moral hazard pays the bills. Many residents lacked flood insurance when then-Governor Kristi Noem diverted the polluted Big Sioux River to McCook Lake in June then went to a campaign event in Tennessee. Now, because FEMA did not classify the area a floodplain even the mayor of North Sioux City is considering buying out people who lost their homes and the State has a $15.4 million plan to make some of that a reality.
As utilities scramble to avoid liability for wildfires, insurance companies are bilking homeowners in the wildland urban interface and denying coverage interfering with mortgages, real estate values and property ownership. Since 2018 nearly two million home insurance contracts have been dropped as companies like State Farm and lobbyists like the American Property Casualty Insurance Association acknowledge humanity’s role in a burning planet.