Along with more than 200 public radio and TV stations nationwide and across Alaska, KSTK was hit by a sweeping federal action canceling $136 million in funding for improvements to emergency warning and alert systems.

KSTK lost half its grant.

The station last year was approved for a $94,000 grant through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which had Federal Emergency Management Agency money to spend to upgrade alert systems at stations in rural, tribal and underserved communities.

KSTK, however, is more fortunate than many stations, particularly in Alaska that already had purchased equipment and are now waiting for reimbursement that may not arrive. The Wrangell station spent $47,000 of the grant and has been reimbursed for that spending.

“I’m feeling really fortunate,” said Cindy Sweat, general manager.

“Every station across the U.S. got the same email,” she said of the notice canceling the grant program.

KSTK already had used about half its grant to purchase and install a backup power generator at its transmitter site at Cemetery Point, near the community garden.

It also bought a new “decoder,” which receives messages from the state and the federal Emergency Alert System and automatically interrupts programming to broadcast the alerts, Sweat said. Those could include weather or tsunami alerts.

The grant was part of the Next Generation Warning System, an effort to do a better job of getting weather alerts, disaster warnings and other emergency messages to the public.

But with the other half of its money eliminated by congressional approval of President Donald Trump’s rescission of federal grant funds at multiple agencies, the station will be unable to purchase and install new repeaters that ensure its signal reaches farther out from town.

The existing equipment is working but is “really old,” Sweat said of the repeater transmitters atop towers near the borough’s solid waste transfer station on the north end of the island, which broadcasts toward the Stikine River and Back Channel, and a second repeater at Shoemaker Bay.

The rest of the lost grant money would have gone toward purchasing a Starlink connection for the station, as a backup for when internet service goes down, she said. The money also would been spent on backup batteries for the station and maybe 50 battery-powered portable radios to pass out to community members who need a way to hear alerts and updates during disasters when their power goes out.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which administered the grant program, will shut down at the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, after Congress in July approved Trump’s request to pull back all of the funding for public broadcasting and close down the agency.

The halt to improvements in the country’s emergency alert system will affect everyone, Sweat said. “It’s very important for everyone across the nation.”