Is there a chance that America will be evacuated in 2009?

Question

What would necessitate such action? Would there be resistance? How long would it take? Is it actually feasible?

Answer 1

Not even remotely possible, where would you put 300 million people?

And how?

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Answer 2

Why would we evacuate america?

Answer 3

Governments are in the "what if" business. They are charged with protecting their citizens no matter what.

There are one or two scenarios that might be feasible to cause such a thing. But all would require prescience to a remarkable degree on their part. I don't think I would trust anyone that claims fortune telling on that scale.

However, if Yellowstone Park goes up next year, I might have to re-evaluate my statement.

Answer 4

If you are talking about the whole of America, it's not possible. Britain and France could take in the Canadians, and Spain, Portugal and Germany could possibly take in the Central and South Americans, but who would want to take in the USA? The thought of 300 million Americans packed into Israel is mind boggling and even if Italy, Ireland and Africa chipped in it would still be impossible - their furniture wouldn't fit into our houses for a start.

I assume you are talking about the USA, and the only reason I can think of for such a necessity would be George Bush doing a goodwill tour. I'm sure there would be lots of resistance. Some stout Americans would undoubtedly head for the wild, to live off the land as their forefathers did. They could be out there for days, so I don't think it's really feasible.

Answer 5

Evacuate America as a whole? No.

Evacuate areas of America in 2009?  100% chance of that happening.

To further frame the question, I will assume that by "America" you mean the "United States of America."  That limits us to 3.5 million square miles of mountains, rivers, deserts, metropolitan areas, rural areas, and other descriptions of land.

To require an evacuation of 3.5 million square miles (and the associated 300 million people), something would have to happen that would make the entire land mass uninhabitable or dangerous.  Let's consider a nuclear attack.  Two atomic bombs on Japan didn't require the evacuation of their 147,000 square miles.  The US is 30 times bigger than Japan, so the scale of the incident would have to be more than 30 (probably at least 300) times the scale of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, very conservatively, that would require between 60 and 600 atomic bombs dropped on the US.  Or a release of toxic gas upwind of every population center and also other methods that would make the rest of the 3.5 million miles of land mass unsafe haven.  I think that's unlikely.

However, we'll see localized evcuations.  Schools and office buildings will be evacuated for tests, drills and real events.  A fire at a chemical plant might cause the western suburbs of a city to be evacuated.  An explosion at a refinery might do the same.    But, these events are on the scale of 10s of square miles, not millions.

Now, where would the 300 million people go?  Canada is a large landmass, but their infrastructure that serves its 30 million people would be unable to serve another 10 times that amount.  Mexico...limited border with only a few states.  Airlift could move 100-400 people at a time to some locations.  The interstate system would allow people movements within the US borders and would gridlock when people got close to borders.

I wouldn't have any estimate on how long it would take...but you can bet there would be resistance to leaving the motherland.

Answer 6

Evacuated where?