Tornado Threats Are a Constant. But Funding for a Safe Room Is Lagging

The federal government in 2022 awarded almost $9 million to the rural Cuba City school district in Wisconsin. District leaders planned to use the grant to outfit a new gymnasium building with a safe room where students and community members could shelter during a tornado outbreak.

More than four years later, the district still hasn’t seen a cent of that money, and the plan to build a safe room is still on hold.

First, the district needed to get its project plans approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which awarded the grant through its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. But the agency is short-staffed, and that process itself took almost three years.

Then, weeks before the district planned to finally break ground, the Trump administration abruptly announced that it would shutter the whole BRIC program and pull back all existing awards, including Cuba City’s.

That move sparked nationwide chaos and a federal lawsuit, which ultimately brought the BRIC grants back to life a few months ago.

Even that wasn’t the end of the story. On June 9, FEMA told the district it had once again canceled its BRIC grant, this time because construction on the gymnasium project (without a safe room) had already begun.

Cuba City had asked FEMA for permission to instead use the grant for a safe room attached to a new performing arts building—but the agency appears to have ignored or overlooked the request. A spokesperson for FEMA didn’t answer a request for comment in time for publication.

In the meantime, the district has struggled—alongside dozens of others in Wisconsin and beyond in recent years—to convince local voters to approve tax increases for other needed services.