COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s Adjutant General warned last week that deep budget cuts proposed for the state’s military department could shut many National Guard armories and put the state at risk as hurricane season approaches.

Maj. Gen. Stanhope Spears delivered the strongly worded message to a Senate Budget panel. Proposed cuts in state funds amount to $931,231, but with the loss of federal funds the military budget would be slashed by more than $2 million, the two-star general said in remarks and budget documents released to the media.

There are about 70 armories across the state.

Despite conjecture in at least one televised report, however, no decisions have been made about which armories would be targeted. One television station specifically mentioned the armory in Gaffney, among several others in the Upstate.

Guard spokesman, Col. Peter Brooks, cautioned, “We don’t know what the state budget is yet. We don’t know if we’ll have to close an armory.”

At this point, Brooks said, the end result will depend on what lawmakers do with the budget. If the National Guard budget isn’t impacted, there would be no impact on the armories.

Brooks said the National Guard has not developed any sort of list or identified the most likely armories for closure if the budget cut goes through.

“At this point, it (closure possibilities) could include all armories,” he said.

The cuts would force the Emergency Management Division, which handles responses in the event of natural disasters, to its lowest staffing level in years, Spears said. In documents presented to the panel, Spears said the emergency staff would lose men and women who conduct planning, training, exercises and citizen preparedness drills that are vital during the state’s hurricane season, which begins June 1.

There are 9,750 members of the Army Guard, about 1,200 in the Air National Guard and 59 employees in the emergency division.