Critical Federal Funding Delays Threaten Rural Emergency Alert Systems Across US

In the aftermath of a devastating landslide in Wrangell, Alaska, in 2023, the community’s public radio station, KSTK, emerged as the sole source of critical information. With only one road and the loss of electricity, internet, television, and phone services for residents south of that road, the station’s general manager, Cindy Sweat, testifies to the crucial role it played in providing updates.

Months later, KSTK was granted up to $90,000 by federal funding to enhance its emergency alert system. The funds came from the Next Generation Warning System grant program, established by Congress in 2022 to reimburse public media stations serving rural and tribal areas for replacing and upgrading essential equipment. However, more than a year after the funding was announced, KSTK has only utilized about half of it due to project obstacles.

According to Sweat, the project has been beset by stop-work orders. In March, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which oversees the program, filed a lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in federal court, alleging that the Trump administration withheld grant funding needed to repay public media stations for investments made in emergency alert systems. This summer, Congress redirected public-media funding, causing a budget shortfall for KSTK and other stations. Sweat explains that her station cannot proceed without assurance of reimbursement.

“I haven’t heard anything from FEMA,” says Sweat. “So I don’t know what happens next.”

The story repeats itself at public media outlets across the United States, with tens of millions of dollars earmarked by Congress to bolster the nation’s emergency alert system potentially in jeopardy. This could leave communities dependent on aging infrastructure vulnerable as they face escalating risks from extreme weather.

Between 2022 and 2024, Congress allocated $136 million to FEMA for the Next Generation Warning System grant program. CPB has been distributing funds from FEMA to radio and television stations to pay for crucial equipment like backup generators and new transmitters. However, this arrangement disintegrated after Republicans in Congress voted in July to rescind CPB’s federal funding.

As CPB winds down its operations, the organization has stated that unless FEMA assumes control of the grant program, $96 million set aside by Congress for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, along with remaining funds from 2022, will not be disbursed. CPB recently advised public media stations awarded grant funding to halt incurring new expenses due to inconsistent reimbursement in recent months, making it impossible to ensure stations would be repaid.

“At this point, it sounds like the grant program is dead in the water,” says Tom Yoder, programming and media director at KSJD radio in southwest Colorado, which has spent about half of its $55,000 grant.

FEMA declined multiple requests for comment on the record for this article.

The Office of Management and Budget stated in a statement to NPR that the Next Generation Warning System grant program will continue to fund necessary infrastructure for emergency alerts and warnings. A new funding announcement FEMA posted earlier this month invites states and Native American tribes to apply for $40 million under the program.

However, broadcasters that have already been awarded funding are still waiting for reimbursement for investments made, casting doubt on how the administration will manage the program in the future.

“I think we are basically, at this point, writing off the last third of the work that we wanted to get done,” says Mitch Teich, the station manager at North Country Public Radio, which had hoped to purchase backup generators for continued broadcasting to rural communities during power outages. The station was awarded almost $110,000 in emergency-alert funding last year.

NPR attempted to contact the 44 public media organizations that received up to $21.6 million from the first round of emergency-alert funding allocated by Congress in 2022. Thirteen stations did not respond or declined to comment. About a dozen stations, including those in Alaska, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Indiana, expect projects awarded grant funding to be delayed or abandoned.

“If I had an [emergency-alert grant] and was midway through, I would be concerned, because it’s as if there are no rules right now,” says Randy Wright, executive director of the division of media properties at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications.

CPB informed member stations in an email that it is reviewing applications for grant funding provided by Congress when the organization’s funding was rescinded. Congress allocated $56 million in emergency-alert grants for that year.

“FEMA needs to find some way to administer and disperse these funds that have been deemed vital to our nation’s emergency broadcasting infrastructure,” Asia Burnett, the station manager at WKMS radio in southwest Kentucky, wrote in an email. WKMS was awarded more than $270,000 in emergency-alert funding but had its grant program disrupted by reimbursement delays and stop-work orders before spending any of the money. Kentucky experienced deadly floods this year.

The government depends on public radio and television stations, alongside cable, satellite, and wireless providers, for disseminating emergency information. Radio and TV broadcasters are particularly valuable, according to FEMA, as they often continue operating when other communication channels are unavailable.

“This is probably the most critical thing that public broadcasters do,” says Tami Graham, executive director of KSUT radio in southwest Colorado, which has spent about $46,000 from a half-million dollar grant received earlier this year for backup systems to broadcast during power outages. “Obviously, the news is important and all other local information,” Graham says, “but emergency broadcasting information is absolutely at the core of our mission and what people expect from us.”

However, many public radio and television broadcast systems have grown fragile with age.

“I cannot emphasize enough how crucial it was for us to complete the projects funded by FEMA grants,” says Sweat, whose radio station in Wrangell, Alaska, is the only local broadcaster. “In addition to not completing the [emergency-alert] project, KSTK also lost more than half of our annual revenue.”

In Colorado, Graham listened with frustration as Congress debated the future of public radio. There’s a “misconception,” she says, that “everyone can get information from multiple sources all the time. Well, those saying that clearly do not live in rural America.”

In parts of the Four Corners region of the southwest, for example, “broadband and internet service is potentially not available at all,” she says. “If it is, it’s unreliable. It comes and goes. It’s intermittent due to the terrain and remoteness. And the same is true for cell service.”

That’s why the projects that public media stations had hoped to complete with FEMA grant funding were so important, Graham says. “This was critical infrastructure. This has nothing to do with partisanship or which side of the aisle you’re on. This is about emergency alerting for everyone who lives in this region, regardless of political affiliation.”