Ridiculous: “Disasters” Declared In 42 North Dakota Counties

Which is pretty much the entire state given that North Dakota only has 53 counties total.
Anyone who has lived in North Dakota, or any other ag-centric state, is probably familiar with the annual declarations of disaster for this drought or that blizzard made by our political leaders. Usually these declarations are met with eye-rolls from we citizens who understand that this is just government using an excuse to get its hands on more money.
But even so, this is a little ridiculous.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) Gov. John Hoeven says federal Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has approved a disaster declaration covering weather-related crop damage in 42 North Dakota counties.
Hoeven made the request earlier because of severe weather including spring flooding.
The 24 primary disaster counties are Adams, Benson, Bottineau, Burke, Cavalier, Dickey, Divide, Eddy, Grand Forks, Griggs, LaMoure, McHenry, Nelson, Pembina, Pierce, Ramsey, Ransom, Richland, Rolette, Sargent, Steele, Towner, Traill and Walsh.
Under federal law, an additional 18 contiguous counties also are eligible for assistance. They are Barnes, Bowman, Cass, Foster, Grant, Hettinger, Logan, McIntosh, McLean, Mountrail, Renville, Sheridan, Sioux, Slope, Stutsman, Ward, Wells and Williams.

These days declaring disasters, and then raking in all the federal money that comes with such a declaration, has become big business. It seems like our local officials use any excuse they can glom on to for “disaster” declaration. As I mentioned before, declaring agriculture disasters has become an annual occurrence here in North Dakota. Summer a little dry? We declare a drought and collect federal money. Summer a little wet? We declare a flood and collect federal money?
Tornado suck up some wheat land? It’s like winning the lottery.
I haven’t gone back and actually checked, but I’m not sure there’s been a year in the 19 years I’ve lived here when North Dakota (and probably a lot of other states too) didn’t have some sort of meteorological “disaster” that prompted pleas and demands for federal money.
Which is kind of absurd, if you take a step back and look at it. We declare disasters, and demand federal aid, not because we actually suffered a true-blue disaster and need the money. But rather because we can declare a disaster, and we will get federal money for it. And the quicker we get our disaster declarations in the more likely we’ll beat other states declaring disasters of their own to the jackpot.
I worry that, because we’ve defined disaster declarations down to the point where most of them (though by no means all) are little more than rent-seeking pleadings for bailouts, when the time roles around for real disaster relief we’re left with fewer resources than we would have had.
I wonder how much additional money we’d have available for, say, flood protection in the eastern part of the state if we weren’t endlessly declaring “disasters” every single year to get in line for the federal bailouts.