This photograph offered by the U.S. Coast Guard exhibits the aftermath of a landslide in Wrangell, Alaska, in November 2023.
U.S. Coast Guard by way of AP
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U.S. Coast Guard by way of AP
When a deadly landslide tore via a part of Wrangell, Alaska, in 2023, there was just one place folks there might go for data. “We’re on an island, and there is one highway, and all people that lived south of that highway misplaced the whole lot — they misplaced their electrical energy, web, tv, telephones,” says Cindy Sweat, the overall supervisor of KSTK, the neighborhood’s public broadcaster. What was left, Sweat says, was the radio.
Months later, KSTK was awarded up to $90,000 in federal funding to enhance that essential alert system. The cash got here from the Subsequent Technology Warning System grant program, which Congress created in 2022 to reimburse the price of changing and upgrading gear at public media stations that serve rural and tribal areas. However greater than a yr after KSTK’s funding was introduced, the station has solely spent about half of the cash it was awarded.
The undertaking has been affected by stop-work orders, Sweat says. In March, the Company for Public Broadcasting, which has been administering this system, sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency in federal courtroom, alleging that the Trump administration withheld grant funding CPB wanted to pay again public media stations for investments they’d made in emergency alert programs. Then this summer season, Congress clawed back public media funding, blowing a gap in KSTK’s funds. Sweat says her station cannot threat spending cash on the undertaking with no assure it is going to be repaid.
“I have never heard something from FEMA,” Sweat says. “So I do not know what occurs subsequent.”
It is a comparable story at public media stations throughout the US. Tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} that Congress put aside to assist broadcasters strengthen the nation’s emergency alert system are in jeopardy, in accordance with public media executives, threatening to go away communities reliant on growing old infrastructure as they face growing risks from extreme weather.
Between 2022 and 2024, Congress appropriated $136 million to FEMA for the Next Generation Warning System grant program. CPB has been distributing cash from FEMA to public radio and tv stations to pay for gear like backup mills and new transmitters so broadcasters might attain extra folks. However that association fell aside after Republicans in Congress voted in July to strip CPB’s federal funding.
As CPB winds down its operations, the organization has said that except FEMA takes over the grant program, $96 million that Congress allocated for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, in addition to some cash left over from 2022, will not be disbursed. CPB lately informed public media stations that had been awarded grant funding to cease incurring new bills, saying FEMA’s “inconsistent reimbursement” in current months had made it unimaginable to make sure stations could be repaid.
“At this level, it sounds just like the grant program is useless within the water,” Tom Yoder, programming and media director at KSJD radio in southwest Colorado, which has spent about half of its $55,000 grant, wrote in an e mail to NPR.
FEMA declined a number of requests to touch upon the document for this story.
The Workplace of Administration and Price range mentioned in an announcement to NPR that the Subsequent Technology Warning System grant program will proceed to fund wanted infrastructure for emergency alerts and warnings. A brand new funding announcement FEMA posted earlier this month invited states and Native American tribes to use for $40 million below this system.
Napa Valley firefighters look on because the Pickett fireplace burns in Calistoga, Calif., on Aug. 21. A quick-moving wildfire erupted north of Calistoga in Napa County, scorching over 1,200 acres inside hours and prompting evacuation orders for close by rural communities, authorities mentioned.
Josh Edelson/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Josh Edelson/AFP by way of Getty Photos
However station executives say that due to delays brought on by the Trump administration, broadcasters which have already been awarded funding are nonetheless ready to be reimbursed for investments they made, elevating doubts about how the administration will deal with this system sooner or later.
“I believe we’re mainly, at this level, writing off the final third of the work that we wished to get completed,” says Mitch Teich, the station supervisor at North Nation Public Radio, which had hoped to purchase backup mills to proceed broadcasting to rural communities in northern New York and western Vermont throughout energy outages. The station final yr was awarded nearly $110,000 in emergency alert funding.
NPR tried to contact the 44 public media organizations that have been awarded as much as $21.6 million from the primary spherical of emergency alert funding that Congress appropriated in 2022. 13 stations did not reply to messages looking for remark or declined to remark. A few dozen stations, together with in Alaska, South Dakota, Mississippi and Indiana, mentioned they do not count on tasks that have been beforehand awarded grant funding to maneuver ahead.
“If I had an [emergency alert grant] and I used to be halfway via, I’d be involved, as a result of it is as if there aren’t any guidelines proper now,” says Randy Wright, govt director of the division of media properties on the College of Florida’s School of Journalism and Communications.
CPB informed member stations in an e mail that it was reviewing functions for grant funding that Congress offered in 2023 when lawmakers rescinded the group’s funding. Congress appropriated $56 million in emergency alert grants for that yr.
“FEMA wants to search out some approach to administer and disperse these funds which were deemed by lawmakers as very important to our nation’s emergency broadcasting infrastructure,” Asia Burnett, the station supervisor at WKMS radio in southwest Kentucky, wrote in an e mail. WKMS was awarded greater than $270,000 in emergency alert funding, however the grant program was upended by reimbursement delays and stop-work orders earlier than the station might spend any of the cash. Kentucky has been hit by deadly floods this yr.
An aerial view of extreme flooding in Frankfort, Ky., brought on by days of heavy rainfall throughout the Midwest in April.
Leandro Lozada/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Leandro Lozada/AFP by way of Getty Photos
America’s emergency alert system has grown fragile
The federal government depends on public radio and tv stations, together with cable, satellite tv for pc and wi-fi suppliers, to distribute emergency data. However radio and TV broadcasters are especially valuable, in accordance with FEMA, as a result of they typically proceed to function when different communication channels aren’t accessible.
“That is in all probability essentially the most essential factor that public broadcasters do,” says Tami Graham, govt director of KSUT radio in southwest Colorado, which has spent about $46,000 from a half-million-dollar grant it was awarded earlier this year for backup programs to broadcast throughout energy outages. “Clearly, the information is necessary and all the opposite native data,” Graham says, “however emergency broadcasting data is totally on the core of our mission and what folks count on from us.”
Nevertheless, loads of public radio and tv broadcast programs have change into fragile with age.
“I do not wish to say we used baling wire and shoestring and duct tape to place issues up, however there are some actually previous items of apparatus in numerous distant websites which can be both on their final legs, or they don’t seem to be supported by the producers anymore, or the producer went out of enterprise 40 years in the past,” says Teich, the station supervisor at North Nation Public Radio.
“We must always see bettering requirements” for delivering emergency data within the U.S., Teich provides. “And one thing like [the warning system grant program] sort of getting back-burnered or brushed apart is just a bit bit extra proof that issues are eroding with regards to serving our folks within the case of an emergency.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, on the Capitol in Washington in July as Senate Republicans pushed President Trump’s request to cancel billions in overseas assist and public broadcasting spending.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
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J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Public media stations are ready on reimbursements from Washington
In July, as Congress ready to rescind CPB’s federal funding, public broadcasters in Alaska relayed federal tsunami advisories to communities after a major earthquake struck off the state’s coast. The broadcasters’ actions that day have been “an ideal instance of the unimaginable public service these stations present,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, wrote on the social media site X on the time. “They ship native information, climate updates, and, sure, emergency alerts that save human lives.”
Murkowski thanked a number of stations by identify. Two of them, KMXT in southern Alaska and KUCB within the Aleutian Islands, had been awarded grant funding by CPB to strengthen their emergency alert programs. Nevertheless, each broadcasters are nonetheless ready to get reimbursed for investments they’ve made, station leaders informed NPR.
It is a comparable story elsewhere within the state. “I do know most of the different Alaska stations are in comparable positions, having been reimbursed for half of the gear wanted for a undertaking, and no approach to transfer ahead. And even worse, not getting reimbursed,” Marley Horner, program director at KHNS public radio in southeast Alaska, wrote in an e mail.
Across the nation, 9 public media stations informed NPR that they are nonetheless awaiting reimbursement for a number of the cash they spent below the grant program. One other 10 stations mentioned they by no means began work on their tasks as a result of it wasn’t sure they’d be repaid. Public media executives mentioned they acquired stop-work orders in current months as CPB and FEMA fought in federal courtroom over entry to the grant funding. Attorneys for FEMA have disputed that the company withheld cash, saying in a court filing that the grant funding was topic to a brand new payment-review course of.
“The issue has been the cease/begin/cease/begin work orders,” Will Anderson, chief govt of Blue Ridge PBS in southwest Virginia, wrote in an e mail. The station was awarded about $1.1 million to interchange broadcast infrastructure so it may possibly attain extra rural communities with emergency alerts. “If funds had not been frozen, this undertaking would have already been accomplished,” Anderson mentioned.
A Trump administration official mentioned funding shall be distributed extra shortly transferring ahead, as a result of the cash will not be funneled via CPB.
A Navajo Nation resident carries her baby exterior her residence in Cameron, Ariz., in July as she waits for electrical energy from the facility grid to achieve her residence. Rural communities have been hit exhausting by disruptions in funding for a program to strengthen emergency alert programs at public broadcasters.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Stations in distant communities have been hit hardest
These funding delays have been particularly disruptive within the nation’s remotest communities, the place radio broadcasts are sometimes essentially the most dependable supply of emergency data. These are additionally the locations the place public media stations have tended to rely most heavily on federal funding via CPB, which Congress eradicated.
“Along with not finishing the [emergency alert] undertaking, KSTK additionally misplaced greater than half of our annual income,” says Sweat, whose radio station is the one native broadcaster in Wrangell, Alaska.
In Colorado, Graham, the chief director of KSUT radio, listened with frustration as Congress debated the way forward for public radio. There is a “misnomer,” she says, that “all people can get data anyplace from a number of sources on a regular basis. Effectively, folks which can be saying that clearly don’t dwell in rural America.”
In components of the 4 Corners area of the Southwest, for instance, “broadband and web service is doubtlessly not accessible in any respect,” she says. “Whether it is, it is sketchy. It comes and goes. It is form of checkerboard, due to the terrain and due to the remoteness. And similar with cell service.”
That is why the tasks that public media stations had hoped to finish with FEMA grant funding have been so necessary, Graham says. “This was essential infrastructure,” she says. “This has nothing to do with partisanship or which facet of the aisle you are on. That is about emergency alerting to everybody that lives on this area, no matter their political affiliation.”
Disclosure: This story was written and reported by NPR’s Local weather and Companies Correspondent Michael Copley. It was edited by Senior Supervising Editor Sadie Babits and Managing Editors Vickie Walton-James and Gerald Holmes. Beneath NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no company official or information govt reviewed this story earlier than it was posted publicly.
