I remember reading somewhere that to evacuate a person is a medical procedure, and not something to be done during an earthquake. (I thought it was in Fowler, but I just looked and couldn't see it). The point is that it is the building that is being evacuated, not the people. "Evacuate" comes from the Latin word for "to empty out".
If this is so, what is happening to the people that are being helped out of a building that is being evacuated?
I was reminded of this question during an episode of CSI: Miami (don't judge me) where someone tells flame-haired Horatio Caine that "You helped evacuate me yesterday". What should she have said to him? "You helped evacuate the building I was in" sounds a little circumlocutionary.
I should have anticipated answers saying "You can use evacuate like that". As far as I can tell, the OED doesn't allow "evacuate" to be the verb that you do to people when removing them from a burning building. So there isn't quite a consensus that I'm barking up the wrong tree, although the concise OED allows "to remove from a place of danger".
Let's say I didn't want to do that for the (perhaps mistaken) reason that it was worth having a distinction between what is being made empty and what it is being emptied of. Let's say I'm super-worried about there being some confusion about whether Horatio helped the woman get to the hurricane shelter or whether he helped perform an unlicensed medical procedure on her. Both might be legitimate readings of "He helped her evacuate". I want this to refer to the latter, so how would I unambiguously talk about the former?
Best Answer
I'd say that you are rescuing them, or helping them exit the building.