As California waits on Trump, FEMA gets going around Oroville Dam

As California waited Monday night to see if President Donald Trump would grant Gov. Jerry Brown's request for emergency funding for 10,000 evacuees who lived in the shadow of the Oroville Dam, FEMA began preparing for the worse.

The federal disaster-management agency's Region 9, which oversees California and other Western states, has mobilized a 24-hour task force to coordinate its response with state and local agencies, said Mary Simms, a spokeswoman.

Though about 188,000 people were displaced by the evacuation orders, Brown's letter to Trump asks to prioritize those who need help most.

Dozens of federal aid workers were dispatched to the network of makeshift shelters where the nearly 200,000 evacuated people, many of whom lived in Butte County, were spending their nights, waiting for word on when they could return home.

Regardless of whether Trump grants California the emergency status necessary for what Brown is seeking, FEMA will play a crucial role in how aid is distributed.

The agency has already started shelling out 150,000 one-liter bottles of water, 20,000 blankets and 10,000 cots to the displaced, Simms said.

Hotels around the dam — the emergency spillway of which officials worried might break Sunday, sending a 30-foot wall of water cascading into the communities below — have largely booked up.

Those who don't have friends or relatives to stay with, or can't afford a hotel room, have no place to go, so they sleep where they can: in their cars and jammed inside makeshift shelters.

The displaced residents don't know when they'll be able to return, either.

Officials have said they're monitoring the situation and won't commit to a timeline. Another round of storms is expected to swell the reservoir once more later in the week.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley