In some cases they took over the response wholesale, shunting the emergency management system/emergency operations center (EOC) off to the side.
In the EOC, the professional staff were, in those circumstances, flying blind. Certainly the policy level should be making policy-level decisions, but not conducting operations on topics that they know little about.
Well-meaning people can really mess up what could be a well-honed response system. I used to call this challenge “putting the bell on the cat.” We mice need to know what the cat is thinking and doing, and where she or he is headed. Then we can support them and their decisions completely.
Alas, it was the “head/policy” that was often wagging the “dog/emergency management,” and the tail — responders and citizens — was being wagged all over the place with mixed messages and poor or non-existent operational support.