Ever been to the snopes.com website? It is a site dedicated to researching urban legends and rumors, etc. Go to snopes.com, type North Dakota in the search box and then click on the link about the North Dakota email. It is not completely as the email states. Also, the governor of North Dakota did in fact ask the federal government to declare several counties disaster areas so they would be eligible for disaster aid. He also wrote a letter requesting that FEMA reimburse North Dakota for storm related expenses. There are a few other differences you might be interested in. Check it out.
Thanks for the pointer to snopes.com. It has cleared up much information in the past for me, but sometimes I don't make the association to check there.