Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that the federal response to the deadly floods in Texas Hill Country last weekend was a good indication of the improved disaster response the Trump administration is committed to providing.

Devastating floods on the Fourth of July claimed at least 119 lives, and more than 150 others are missing. Among those killed were 27 girls attending Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas.

“What you saw from our response in Texas is going to be a lot of how President [Donald] Trump envisions what [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] (FEMA) would look like in the future,” Noem said during a news conference Saturday. 

“We did things in Texas, in response, very different than Joe Biden.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP, FIRST LADY HEAD TO VISIT KERRVILLE, TEXAS FOLLOWING FATAL FLOODS

In response to the 2023 Ohio train derailment in East Palestine, the Biden administration said the chemical disaster did not meet legal requirements for a FEMA disaster declaration, waiting two weeks to deploy a team to assist.

In the 2023 Maui fires, more than 100 people were killed, and historic Lahaina was reduced to rubble. Survivors were left without food, water and shelter.

At the time, FEMA Administrator Michael Brown called President Joe Biden’s response to the deadly fires “an abject failure.”

Displaced residents Caroline Anthony and Lori Brodeur pause while searching for personal items in the rubble of a wildfire that destroyed their home Oct. 5, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Slow responses and inadequate aid were also widely reported after Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina in late 2024. 

“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” Trump said in January while visiting North Carolina. “I think, frankly, FEMA is not good.”

DEADLY TEXAS FLOOD EXPOSES ‘NEGLECTED’ WEATHER ALERT SYSTEM TRUMP AIMS TO MODERNIZE

Search and rescue teams work in Kerrville, Texas, July 9. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

Noem noted that, during the most recent disaster, federal assistance was on the ground in Texas as soon as the flooding hit.

“We deployed our Coast Guard, helicopters, [aircraft] and swift water rescue teams out of Customs and Border Protection,” she said. “Our [Border Patrol Tactical Unit] (BORTAC) teams, which I like to call the Department of Homeland Security’s ninjas, are specifically trained for situations like that, where the unprecedented is happening.”

After the floods, Noem said she immediately met with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and spoke with him about getting a major disaster declaration signed.

Within an hour or two of the request, she said, it was approved by the White House.

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott meet with local emergency services personnel as they survey flood damage along the Guadalupe River Friday in Kerrville, Texas. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“We pre-deployed dollars right to Texas so that they can make the best decisions responding to their people,” Noem said. “FEMA has never done that before — pre-deployed dollars to a state so that they could use that to save their people, so they could use that to go out and save lives.”

Noem said the president wants the states to be empowered during emergencies.

GOV. ABBOTT DEMANDS COMPREHENSIVE OVERHAUL OF TEXAS FLOOD WARNING SYSTEMS AS DEATH TOLL RISES

“Emergencies are locally executed,” she said. “They are state-managed and then the federal government comes in and supports you. [No one] ever wants to sit back and wait for someone from the federal government to show up and rescue you out of your house because that, in the past, has not served people well under the Biden administration.

Under President Trump, Noem said, federal officials were there immediately to help local and state officials manage the response.

Multiple Texas flood victims have been confirmed dead by families, including some of the girls who went missing from Camp Mystic when the Guadalupe River flooded July 4. (Fox News)

She added her belief that FEMA “will cease to exist the way that it is today.”

“We are fundamentally reforming that agency,” Noem said. “President Trump may want to, in his prerogative, as he likes to do, rename things. He may come up with a new name for this agency that reflects the fundamental change that’s going to happen there. But this agency will no longer be the bureaucratic agency where people have to wait 20 years for their claim to be paid. 

“It will be an agency that immediately says to that state, and to that local emergency management director, ‘What do you need? How can we support you?’ And then trains them to have the skill set that they need to be serving their people immediately, because they’re always there faster. They’re right there on the streets.”

It is unclear what the new agency name might be.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump listen during a roundtable discussion with first responders and local officials at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville, Texas, after observing flood damage Friday. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

When asked about reports of calls to FEMA from Texas residents going unanswered, Noem said she was “throwing the bull—- flag,” claiming she did not think that was true.

“I will get rid of any contract that doesn’t respond to people because they know they are empowered to do it,” she said.

FEMA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Suzanne Morphew’s body may have been moved twice after she died, according to a forensic scientist.

Barry Morphew was re-indicted by a grand jury in Colorado on a murder charge on June 20 after he allegedly killed his wife, 49-year-old Suzanne Morphew, who vanished on Mother’s Day in 2020. The Morphews lived near Salida, Colorado, where Suzanne Morphew was last seen alive.

Barry Morphew was arrested near Phoenix, Arizona, on June 20, booking documents show. He was living inside a trailer park located in Cave Creek, Arizona, according to property tax records.

Though Suzanne Morphew went missing in 2020, agents with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation found her remains on Sept. 22, 2023. According to prosecutors, a 2024 autopsy report showed a deer tranquilizer called “BAM” was found in her bone marrow, which stands for the chemicals butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine.

Prosecutors said Suzanne Morphew’s remains were found “in and around a shallow clandestine grave” in Saguache County, Colorado, a “few hundred feet” off Highway 17.

INSIDE BARRY MORPHEW’S SECRETIVE LIFE 600 MILES AWAY FROM EPICENTER OF MURDER INVESTIGATION INTO WIFE’S DEATH

According to the indictment charging Barry Morphew with first-degree murder after deliberation, the clothes on Suzanne Morphew’s body “lacked evidence of decomposition.” Officials also said a “very small amount” of dried soft tissue was found on the bones, no hair mass was located and there was a lack of animal predation visible on the bones.

“All these features would have been expected if this had been the original gravesite where decomposition occurred,” a board-certified forensic anthropologist, a botanist and an entomologist told prosecutors. “The forensic anthropologist opined that based on these factors it was unlikely Suzanne decomposed from a fresh body to a skeleton at this location.”

Peter Valentin, associate professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven, told Fox News Digital the body was moved “at least” one time.

“There’s certainly every indication that decomposition occurred in a place other than where the body was found,” Valentin said. “Now, I’ve seen that people have said the body’s been moved at least twice. And I think that’s a reasonable inference. But you can’t know that for sure, because that assumes, that makes an assumption, that the body was killed in one location. Transported to a second location where the decomposition occurs, and then brought to the third location where the body is discovered. And I don’t think you know that for sure yet.

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Barry Morphew was booked into the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)

Valentin also said there’s an “absence of evidence” suggesting that the clothing Suzanne Morphew’s remains were found in is what she decomposed with.

Suzanne Morphew’s bones were found “significantly bleached,” according to the indictment. Valentin said the term “bleached,” in this context, refers to how much sun exposure the bones had.

In this case, Valentin said the “significantly bleached” bones help support prosecutors’ argument that Suzanne Morphew’s body was moved.

Suzanne Morphew and Barry Morphew (Fox News/ Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office)

“As part of the decomposition process, so if some bones are bleached and some aren’t, you can get a sense of you know how the remains are positioned. If where Suzanne Morphew’s remains are found, are in a place that are not exposed to the sun, therefore they couldn’t be bleached at the site where they recovered that would be another indicator that she was.”

Barry Morphew’s next court date is Sept. 2.

Declassified documents revealing a United States military aircraft was previously struck by an unknown flying object is raising eyebrows as experts point to other unexplainable sightings suggesting otherworldly technology flying within the country’s airspace. 

The incident occurred in January 2023, after an unidentified object collided with the left side of an F-16 Viper jet participating in training exercises near Gila Benda, Arizona, an Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital. 

The flying object struck the clear “canopy” at the top of the aircraft and was first spotted by an instructor pilot sitting in the rear of the plane, officials said. An initial investigation determined no damage was done to the near $70 million jet, with officials ruling against a possible bird strike. 

OVER 60 UFO SIGHTINGS REPORTED WHIZZING ACROSS STATE IN FIRST HALF OF 2025, NATIONAL TRACKING GROUP SAYS

Authorities ultimately determined the aircraft was struck by a drone, but the location and operator of the device have yet to be determined, the spokesperson said. 

The incident was the first of four encounters with unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) that were reported a day later, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents obtained by the War Zone. 

“According to military personnel I’ve personally met with, there were objects 200 miles off the East Coast that were extensively loitering and had no visible means of propulsion,” James Fox, a director specializing in films about UFO activity, told Fox News Digital. “So a report from 2023 about an actual impact with a UAP doesn’t really surprise me.” 

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The concerning collision comes as the Department of Defense reported 757 incidents involving UAPs from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, according to an unclassified document released by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. 

Of those encounters, 708 occurred in the air, with only 49 instances marked as “case closed” by officials. Additionally, the department received 18 reports regarding UAP incidents near nuclear infrastructure, launch sites and weapons, according to the report.

“None of these resolved cases substantiated advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies,” the report states. 

UFO FOOTAGE CAPTURED BY US NAVY SHOWS MYSTERIOUS AIRCRAFT LAUNCHING FROM SEA, EXPERT SAYS

The Pentagon recorded 757 incidents involving UAPs from 2023 to 2024, according to unclassified documents. (iStock)

The sightings of UAPs near military sites are nothing new, according to Fox. 

“There are reports dating back to the 1930s and 1940s,” Fox said. “Where you had mysterious, glowing, and orb-like objects that emitted very bright light that could just fly rings around the military planes from World War II.”

Fox pointed to the sheer advanced technology showcased within these sightings, such as aircraft that do not emit a heat signature or have the ability to fly stationary in high wind conditions.

“This has been well-documented for decades,” Fox said. “So either we’ve managed to track the same thing it’s been, [possibly] non-human intelligence, since the 1940s. Or someone has managed to replicate the technology, reverse engineer it and they’re flying it around.” 

VIRAL CIA FILE ABOUT ALIENS ATTACKING SOLDIERS TAKES OFF WITH UFO INTRIGUE

Of the 2023 to 2024 reports, 708 occurred in the air, with only 49 instances marked as “case closed” by officials, according to Pentagon documents. (iStock)

In 2020, the Department of Defense established an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) to further research and investigate the various UAPs spotted throughout American skies. 

“The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security,” the department said in a statement. 

Fox also cited officials’ use of updated technology to pinpoint the location and characteristics of UAPs possibly contributing to the influx in reports over recent years. 

UFO COVER USED BY GOVERNMENT TO ‘HIDE A LOT OF THINGS,’ FORMER NASA AGENT SAYS

“They’ve adjusted the frequency on particular radars to pick up smaller objects that maybe have been here all along,” Fox said, adding, “it’s a global phenomenon exhibiting the technology that’s just lightyears ahead from anything we have. Has there been a successful effort in reverse engineering? [If not], then it falls into the category that many would say is non-human intelligence.” 

While a vast majority of UAPs spotted by officials are quickly identified, Fox insists there are a select few that have origins unknown to even the highest of government authorities and do not match the technology owned by the country’s adversaries. 

“A small percentage of these objects display a technology that’s just light-years beyond anything that we or anybody else on the planet has,” Fox said. “Which would imply, once you do the process of elimination, if it isn’t Russia or China, and if it’s not us, what’s left?” 

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER MYSTERIOUS SPHERE IN COLOMBIA, SPARKING UFO SPECULATION

Fox also attributes overall public skepticism regarding UAPs to the U.S. government remaining tight-lipped about its findings over the years. However, officials have continued to work toward transparency with the American public, with a congressional hearing on UFOs occurring for the first time in decades in 2022 and continuing to take place on the floors of Congress. 

“The primary reason for secrecy is that it’s difficult for any governing body to admit that there are structured craft of unknown origin whizzing around with impunity,” Fox said. “They fly rings around our fastest jets, and [the government] doesn’t know who they are, where they come from or what they want.”