Public broadcasters say emergency-alert funds are in peril : NPR

When a lethal landslide tore by means of a part of Wrangell, Alaska, in 2023, there was just one place folks there might go for info. “We’re on an island, and there is one highway, and all people that lived south of that highway misplaced all the things — they misplaced their electrical energy, web, tv, telephones,” says Cindy Sweat, the overall supervisor of KSTK, the group’s public broadcaster. What was left, Sweat says, was the radio.

Months later, KSTK was awarded as much as $90,000 in federal funding to enhance that vital 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 12 months after KSTK’s funding was introduced, the station has solely spent about half of the cash it was awarded.

The undertaking has been stricken by stop-work orders, Sweat says. In March, the Company for Public Broadcasting, which has been administering this system, sued the Federal Emergency Administration Company in federal court docket, alleging the Trump administration withheld grant funding CPB wanted to pay again public media stations for investments that they had made in emergency-alert methods. Then this summer time, Congress clawed again public-media funding, blowing a gap in KSTK’s funds. Sweat says her station cannot threat spending cash on the undertaking with no assure will probably be repaid.

“I have not 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 depart communities reliant on growing old infrastructure as they face rising dangers from excessive climate.

Between 2022 and 2024, Congress appropriated $136 million to FEMA for the Subsequent Technology Warning System grant program. CPB has been distributing cash from FEMA to public radio and tv stations to pay for gear like backup turbines 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 group has mentioned that until FEMA takes over the grant program, $96 million that Congress allotted for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, in addition to some cash left over from 2022, will not be disbursed. CPB lately advised public media stations that had been awarded grant funding to cease incurring new bills, saying FEMA’s “inconsistent reimbursement” in latest months had made it unattainable to make sure stations could be repaid.

“At this level, it sounds just like the grant program is lifeless 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 report 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 beneath this system.

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 principally, at this level, writing off the final third of the work that we wished to get carried out,” says Mitch Teich, the station supervisor at North Nation Public Radio, which had hoped to purchase backup turbines to proceed broadcasting to rural communities in northern New York and western Vermont throughout energy outages. The station final 12 months was awarded nearly $110,000 in emergency-alert funding.

NPR tried to contact the 44 public media organizations that had 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 had been beforehand awarded grant funding to maneuver ahead.

“If I had an [emergency-alert grant] and I used to be halfway by means of, I’d be involved, as a result of it is as if there are not any guidelines proper now,” says Randy Wright, government director of the division of media properties on the College of Florida’s School of Journalism and Communications.

CPB advised member stations in an e mail that it was reviewing functions for grant funding that Congress supplied in 2023 when lawmakers rescinded the group’s funding. Congress appropriated $56 million in emergency-alert grants for that 12 months.

“FEMA wants to seek out some option to administer and disperse these funds which have been 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 lethal floods this 12 months.

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 info. However radio and TV broadcasters are particularly worthwhile, 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 probably the most vital factor that public broadcasters do,” says Tami Graham, government director of KSUT radio in southwest Colorado, which has spent about $46,000 from a half-million greenback grant it was awarded earlier this 12 months for backup methods to broadcast throughout energy outages. “Clearly, the information is necessary and all the opposite native info,” Graham says, “however emergency broadcasting info is completely on the core of our mission and what folks count on from us.”

Nonetheless, numerous public radio and tv broadcast methods have change into fragile with age.

“I do not wish to say we used baling wire and shoe string and duct tape to place issues up, however there are some actually previous items of kit in varied distant websites which might 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 should always see bettering requirements” for delivering emergency info within the U.S., Teich provides. “And one thing like [the warning system grant program] type of getting back-burnered or brushed apart is just a bit bit extra proof that issues are eroding in terms of serving our folks within the case of an emergency.”

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 significant earthquake struck off the state’s coast. The broadcasters’ actions that day had been “an ideal instance of the unimaginable public service these stations present,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, wrote on the social media web 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 title. 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 methods. Nonetheless, each broadcasters are nonetheless ready to get reimbursed for investments they’ve made, station leaders advised 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 option 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 advised NPR that they are nonetheless awaiting reimbursement for a number of the cash they spent beneath 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 might be repaid. Public media executives mentioned they acquired stop-work orders in latest months as CPB and FEMA fought in federal court docket over entry to the grant funding. Legal professionals for FEMA have disputed that the company withheld cash, saying in a court docket submitting 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 government of Blue Ridge PBS in southwest Virginia, wrote in an e mail. The station was awarded about $1.1 million to exchange broadcast infrastructure so it might probably 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 by means of CPB.

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 probably the most dependable supply of emergency info. These are additionally the locations the place public media stations have tended to rely most closely on federal funding by means of 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 manager 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 info wherever from a number of sources on a regular basis. Effectively, folks which might be saying that clearly don’t dwell in rural America.”

In elements 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 type of checkerboard, due to the terrain and due to the remoteness. And identical with cell service.”

That is why the tasks that public media stations had hoped to finish with FEMA grant funding had been so necessary, Graham says. “This was vital 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 government reviewed this story earlier than it was posted publicly.