The scare over a damaged dam in Oroville, Calif., highlights the rift between the conservative rural parts of the state and the left-leaning cities along the southern coast, USA Today reported.

Residents of Oroville, a conservative community, are dealing with dam repair – while others downstream were evacuated – over a dam which helps deliver drinking water to liberal Los Angeles. The threat of death and devastation raised eyebrows of those in the potential "sanctuary" state's minority, according to the report.

"That fact that the water benefits people hundreds of miles away from this danger is reverberating around these conservative communities that see little common ground with the far more liberal Californians on the coast and in Silicon Valley," according to USA Today.

The conservative Oroville community (pop. 16,000) even features a sign supporting seceding from California and creating a new state of Jefferson, showing the distrust of rural California vs. the liberal majority in the major cities, in a so-called "sanctuary state," using these communities for its water supply – with oft-limited funding.

"It's a refrain voiced time and again in Oroville and the surrounding towns: The liberal, more populated parts of California suck up all the political attention and public dollars, leaving little for the men and women who help grow the nation's food, fruits, and nuts," according to USA Today. "That dichotomy has bred a mistrust of state government and a healthy skepticism of federal officials, with the exception of Trump.

"How is it, the people here ask, that state and federal officials didn't seem to have the money to properly fix the dam's problems when they were first identified, but have seemingly untold millions available when the crisis finally arrived," the newspaper wrote.

California overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton, who won 61 percent of its popular vote, but Butte County, surrounding Oroville, favored Trump. Also, downstream neighbor Yuba County, went for Trump at nearly 58 percent, according to USA Today.

"As you know, I'm very much opposed to sanctuary cities," President Trump had told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly earlier this month. "They breed crime. There's a lot of problems. If we have to, we'll defund. We give tremendous amounts of money to California. California in many ways is out of control, as you know."