Federal disaster officials who sounded the alarm about their own agency are being called back in from the sidelines. At least 15 FEMA employees who were put on paid leave after publicly criticizing then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been cleared to return to work, according to the department and one of the whistleblowers. The group was among those who signed the "Katrina Declaration" last August, warning that FEMA's ranks were being hollowed out and objecting to a policy that required Noem's personal signoff on any expenditure over $100,000, NBC News reports. Most of the more than 180 current and former FEMA staffers who signed the declaration remained anonymous, but 15 of those who gave their names were suspended, reports CNN.

Whistleblowers said that rule slowed emergency response, including deployment of urban search-and-rescue teams after last summer's deadly Hill Country floods in Texas. FEMA says that approval policy has now been scrapped under new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Noem last month.

• FEMA statistician James Stroud tells NBC that he received an unexpected email Wednesday saying he could return to work. Stroud, whose work involves estimating how many people will be impacted by disasters, showed up at FEMA headquarters at 8am on Thursday. "It seems random and it's really not clear what sparked this," he says. "And it's so wild that we have been paid to do nothing for eight months. This just seems like such an obvious thing...

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