Click play to listen to this article.

Spring storm season is here, and local officials who prepare for emergency responses after a natural disaster say it's a hard time to get plans together.

That includes a manager from one of North Dakota's rural counties.

Emergency management directors have long dealt with resource challenges, but a new report from ProPublica outlines the growing uncertainty for this line of work. The report points to Federal Emergency Management Agency overhauls sought by the Trump administration, including staffing cuts, grant cancellations and disruptions, outlining how those changes impact local partners.

Angela Herda, emergency manager for Nelson County, said government shutdowns haven't helped either.

Image

"We get trained through FEMA," she said, "and so if they're not being funded, they can't send out their people to train us."

Herda said her rural county leans heavily on grants to maintain emergency response planning. Her colleagues have said mounting obstacles could make smaller towns especially vulnerable when extreme storms, floods or massive fires happen. President Donald Trump has long criticized FEMA, arguing it's overly bureaucratic. His administration is finalizing additional proposed reforms, due near the end of this month.

Herda said another challenge is that the day-to-day work in emergency response planning often goes unnoticed until disaster strikes.

"Especially like our county commissioners," she said. "They know that they have to have an emergency manager, but they don't always understand what we do."

People in these roles say that makes it hard to compete for funding with public safety agencies, which are more visible. Herda added that with the exception of around a dozen North Dakota counties, most emergency managers around the state are part-time employees, but still have the same responsibilities. In addition to more consistent federal support, she'd like to see this occupation become more "professionalized" – particularly through educational programs – so that policymakers know more about these roles.