Noem is the 'boss' of the SD National Guard. Why weren't they deployed for the June flood?

Kristi Noem found herself caught in the high-tide of discontent.

Legislators and social media users alike harangued South Dakota's second-term governor after she told reporters June 25 in Yankton she had no plans to activate the state's National Guard to respond to devastating flooding in eastern South Dakota.

This isn't exactly new information. On June 23, Noem warned reporters and residents of the potential for the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers to deliver large slugs of water into the tristate communities of Dakota Dunes, North Sioux City and Sioux City at the same time.

The Argus Leader asked the governor during a presser if she was considering deploying the forces. She responded that would likely not happen.

But that was before the floodwaters cascaded through the extreme southeastern tip of the state. While the Missouri River flooding ended up staggered behind the Big Sioux River's influx, the latter still washed through the area much more quickly than state officials anticipated. After Noem's June 23 presser in North Sioux City wrapped up around 3:30 p.m., water was starting to trickle into the neighborhood around McCook Lake by 5 p.m. That same night — emergency responders thought they had at least a day to prepare — water soaked and later swept away several homes and eroded roads.

"Gov Kristi Noem sent troops to Texas and billed us, South Dakota taxpayers," Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "BUT Noem said it’s too expensive to use our guard to help our taxpayers fight the flood. Explain this hypocrisy???#NoemVisitSD?"

Since June 23, Noem has reiterated a half-truth: In order for the state National Guard to be deployed to flood-devastated areas, a community needs to request such aid from the governor, whom would make a decision on whether the disaster or other disturbance merits the response.

"In order for National Guard troops to be deployed, a request is to [sic] the Governor from the local government, and after discussion, no request was ever made," Ian Fury, Noem's chief of communications, wrote in Thursday statement. "The Guard may still be utilized to help in this disaster if a time comes when a community requests a defined mission that can be best accomplished by our soldiers."

What Noem and her communications team left out is the other half of the truth: South Dakota's governor can activate Army National Guard forces for in-state disaster responses on her own.

This is laid out in Title 32 of the U.S. Code, said Col. Scott Linquist, public affairs officer for the South Dakota Army National Guard, which gives her civil authority over the state's National Guard. South Dakota Codified Law plainly lays out her role as the "commander in chief of the militia of the state" — namely, National Guard forces.

"She is the boss of the National Guard," Linquist told the Argus Leader in a phone call Friday.

In terms of raising the forces into active-duty, Linquist said the process Noem described, in which public or county officials essentially petition for help, is the customary procedure. Typically, a mayor or sheriff will contact their county's emergency manager, who will then contact the state National Guard with a request for aid, Linquist said. That is then sent to the Department of Public Safety's Office of Emergency Management, which takes the application to the governor. The state National Guard's adjutant general and the governor will then confer over whether the former has the resources, personnel and equipment needed to respond to that emergency.

"If those conditions are met, then, yeah, the guard will be activated to support whatever event we're requested for," Linquist said.

But Noem declined to activate the state's forces. Instead, she relied on private contractors and the community to respond.

"We activate our National Guard - they get utilized a lot. They've been federally overseas a lot and through lots of situations," Noem told reporters June 25. "We have to be wise with how we use our soldiers."

Rep. Tim Reisch, R-Howard, knows the price of deployment. He previously served as adjutant general of the South Dakota National Guard during former Gov. Dennis Daugaard's administration. In 2011, when a historic and complex flood event hit the Midwest, Daugaard activated Reisch's forces in advance of and to respond to the aftermath.

They're a "heck of an asset," Reisch told the Argus Leader in a Thursday phone call. The former adjutant general described them as "well-equipped, well-trained," and "they know how to take orders."

They're also "very expensive," Reisch noted, and previous deployments prove the cost. The 2011 Missouri River Flood racked up millions in damages across the state. Daugaard told the Associated Press in 2011 the state spent at least $15 million for protecting and repairing public infrastructure, with about half of that on National Guard troops.

"When you activate the South Dakota National Guard, they become, in effect, employees of the state during that activation because the state of South Dakota pays the soldiers and then the state of South Dakota has to pay for every hour or every mile that a truck was driven," Reisch said. "It does get very expensive. I think that's probably something that's not widely understood."

The former adjutant general also defended Noem from a practicality standpoint. Compared to the sudden deluge that led to the June flooding, the state had weeks to prepare for the 2011 flood and spent months managing the disaster.

To that end, Reisch said some factors, like the scope and location of a disaster, play into the decision of activating the National Guard.

When, for example, an F2 tornado tore through the town of Delmont in 2015, the state National Guard played a key role in assisting the community with their clean-up. It made sense to deploy them at the time, because Delmont, a town of less than 200 residents, didn't have adequate resources for recovery efforts.

"Not a lot of general contractors in Delmont, South Dakota, but maybe, Sioux City, maybe there is an abundance of them, and they probably can do the job as cheap or cheaper than what the guard does," Reisch said. "It certainly deserves some careful consideration."

However, the emergency and disaster costs are something the state always makes room for in its annual budget, Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls, told the Argus Leader on June 24.

Through the Emergency & Disaster Fund, a special appropriation included in the state's general fund, the state can roll the costs forward into each year's upcoming budget. That's what South Dakota's legislative body did in 2012: After the 2011 flood washed over the eastern half of the state, and a wave of the invasive mountain pine beetle desiccated the Black Hills region in the same year, lawmakers passed a bill to allocate more than $20 million to the fund.

In Duba's eyes, the fund is meant to be used to cover the cost of disasters big and small and regardless of whether the National Guard is deployed.

"If the decision is made, then the legislature will act appropriately," Duba said. "You can't predict a disaster."

This requires taxpayer dollars, Duba noted, and the state hasn't been afraid to deploy the forces before.

Noem activated the National Guard to help the residents of Castlewood - the governor's hometown — recover from a tornado in May 2022. And in December 2022, the second-term governor sent Guard units to haul firewood to communities on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian Reservations impacted by deadly winter storms.

When then-President Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore for a fireworks display on July 3, 2020, Native American protesters blocked a road leading up to the monument. Noem deployed the National Guard for this event, as well, which led to physical confrontations between the activists and Guard members.

Similarly, Noem deployed National Guard members in May 2020 during the George Floyd protest in downtown Sioux Falls, where they were asked to remain on standby in case the situation escalated into violence. Sioux Falls Police did respond to a separate group of discontent protesters who engaged in violence at the Empire Mall, about 4 miles away.

Noem has also sent National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border multiple times during her administration. In February, Noem announced she would be deploying units to the border to help with "construction of a wall to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drug cartels, and human trafficking into the United States of America."

South Dakota is also part of an Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a nationwide mutual aid agreement. Texas never paid South Dakota for its aid because of the compact, and the deployment was eventually rolled into the emergency fund through a bill during the latest legislative session, costing taxpayers about $1.5 million.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Should Gov. Noem have deployed the National Guard for the SD flooding?