‘Somebody hit the wrong button’: Thousands in Shasta Lake evacuated accidentally | Hacker News Reader

‘Somebody hit the wrong button’: Thousands in Shasta Lake evacuated accidentally

sacbee.com

23 pointsprostoalex11 comments

Mistakes happen and ones of this scale don't happen daily or even weekly (last one that comes to mind is the Hawaii siren one). I'm not sure why it makes sense to stir this up as some kind of a massive issue. It completely makes sense that they didn't immediately correct the issue as it could have caused more lives lost due to other area's making bad assumptions. Also, fire is unpredictable, they guy in the video talking about "The fire went the other way" well hindsight is 20/20...

“Shasta Lake evacuated accidentally” is probably what the author meant.

“Thousands in Shasta Lake evacuated accidentally” means thousands of people accidentally emptied their bowels.

I think that battle is long lost - Google ‘thousands evacuated’ and there are some very amusing ones.

I don't understand. "I evacuated the building" doesn't make sense to you? It makes sense to me. If it does to you too, then why not pluralize and apply to a region instead of a building?

To me it reads as a passive: thousands of people were evacuated accidentally, with the "were" being left out because it's a headline.

If you evacuate a building, you make everybody leave.

To evacuate is to clear something out, not just to leave.

It means both (look it up): to leave, or to force someone to leave.

http://www.grammarunderground.com/can-you-evacuate-a-person....

Wouldn't "Thousands in Shasta Lake accidentally evacuated" work as well ?

edit: or "Thousands in Shasta Lake were accidentally evacuated" ?

According to the OED [1], "evacuate" can apply either to the thing that is being emptied, or to the things being removed.

Meaning 2: "To clear (a place) of inmates, etc., (a country) of inhabitants, troops, wild beasts."

Supported by the quotation "Evacuating the Kingdom of all Foreign Troops"

Meaning 8a: "To clear out, remove (inhabitants, inmates, or troops)."

Meaning 8b: "To remove (inhabitants of an area liable to aerial bombing or other hazards) to safer surroundings"

Supported by quotations "He was evacuating the garrison and Egyptian inhabitants of that place" and "Mr. Greenwood and others strongly appealed to the Prime Minister to evacuate children at once"

[1]: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/65161?redirectedFrom=evacuate#...

Looks like the title has been fixed.

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