Last November tens of millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump precisely because he wasn’t a normal politician — and so far, his presidency hasn’t proved them wrong.

But can Trump act like a more normal president when circumstances require it? The Oroville Dam crisis in Northern California is a perfect test.

In case you haven’t been following the news, here’s a quick recap.

The Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the nation. It was completed in 1968. It’s located between Sacramento and Chico. All winter, record-setting storms have been pummeling the Golden State; in fact, so much rain has fallen in the area that the reservoir behind the Oroville Dam recently rose 50 feet in a matter of days.

Earlier this month, operators tried to reduce pressure on the dam by releasing water over a concrete spillway. That’s when they discovered a huge crater in the concrete. Even so, they continued to use the spillway — and the damage got worse. On Friday, the gash was 45 feet deep, 300 feet wide, and 500 feet long.

There’s an auxiliary spillway at Oroville too, but it had never been used before, mainly because it’s just an unpaved hillside. Last week, however, it was finally pressed into service. The hope was that operators could use the backup spillway to lower the water level in Lake Oroville while working to repair the primary spillway. On Sunday, however, they noticed that the backup spillway was starting to erode.

This was a potentially deadly problem: If the slope crumbled, it would send a 30-foot wall of water barreling downriver, threatening lives and obliterating communities throughout Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties. The authorities immediately issued a mandatory evacuation order for nearly 200,000 people. “This is NOT A Drill. This is NOT A Drill. This is NOT A Drill,” the Butte County Sheriff’s Office warned on its Facebook page.

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With more than 100,000 local residents still displaced, crews are now rushing to repair the spillways before even more rain arrives in the region later this week. (The evacuation order was finally lifted Tuesday afternoon.)

So what does this have to do with President Trump?

There are two answers to that question: one short term, one longer term. Both give Trump the opportunity to demonstrate that his presidency can be more than non-stop disruption and controversy.

Let’s start with the short term. On Monday, California Gov. Jerry Brown officially requested a federal emergency declaration to assist in the potential failure of the Oroville spillway, saying that the situation is “of such severity and magnitude that continued effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments and supplemental federal assistance is necessary to save lives and to protect property, public health and safety, and to lessen the effects of this serious situation.”

There’s only one person who can approve such a request: President Trump.

Yahoo NewsFebruary 15, 2017

Trump didn’t have to greenlight Brown’s request. FEMA and the California National Guard are already on the scene, and presidents deny this sort of disaster request all the time, for all sorts of reasons. (For instance: Barack Obama said no to Florida Gov. Rick Scott when he requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency help with an algae problem, and he also refused to declare a federal emergency over the water crisis in Flint, Mich.)

But a normal president would consider California’s plea for help on its merits and decide how to proceed accordingly.

The early thinking — and this goes to show how far American politics have strayed from “normal” in the Age of the Donald — was that President Trump might not. Trump and Brown — not to mention Trump and the rest of California’s Democratic politicians — have been feuding since the day he was elected, with Brown telling Trump not to interfere with California’s progressive policies and Trump threatening to cut off the state’s federal funding in response. (“California is in many ways out of control,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly.)