evacuate
v.v. to move people away from a dangerous place to a safer one. You also use it to describe leaving a building or area because of a threat like a fire or storm.
v. to remove people from a place of danger to a safe location; to vacate a site in response to a threat. Transitive when the object is the person or the place being cleared.
The police had to evacuate the building after the fire alarm rang.
Local authorities ordered residents to evacuate the coastal town before the hurricane made landfall on Tuesday morning.
Emergency protocols require the captain to evacuate the vessel immediately if the hull integrity is compromised beyond the reach of onboard repair systems.
First attested in 1526; borrowed from Latin ēvacuātus, the perfect passive participle of ēvacuō (“to empty out, evacuate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
The verb is transitive and can take either the place being emptied or the people being moved as its direct object.
The building was evacuated of the people.The people were evacuated from the building.While you can evacuate a building, you evacuate people 'from' a place, not 'of' them.