The news came in a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. Under the new secretary, Kristi Noem, the department said it was eliminating waste and fraud, and that the grant program funding Hoquiam’s levees was “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.” And just like that, the financial motor of the entire project came to a stop.

“My first reaction was, ‘Oh, man, this is just the worst news you could ever get,’” said Mr. Shay, 56, a Grays Harbor native. He had returned after moving to Seattle for college because he wanted to help improve the place where he grew up. “It just felt like being stabbed in the heart,” he said.

Grays Harbor is a red county in a blue state, but no one there considered the levee project to be political. On the contrary, it was a basic piece of public infrastructure created in a remarkable act of common purpose: Two city councils and two Native American tribes, Democrats and Republicans had worked together to create it.

Now the county has joined the ranks of communities nationwide that are puzzling over what to do about cuts the Trump administration made to projects and programs that no one imagined would be in danger. Town administrators are trying to determine whether the money is paused, rerouted through other programs or gone for good — and if it is gone, what to do to replace it.

“It’d be one thing if we have to wait a couple years, but I just really hope that it isn’t just cut and lost,” said Mr. Shay, whose administrator position is nonpartisan. “This is something we want, I want personally, so bad. We all want desperately.”