Curious Who Pays For American Evacuations
When the Federal Government has to evacuate Americans from areas of natural disasters like we are seeing in Japan, or earlier in Egypt, who pays the bill? - Lynne
Our tax dollars pay for most of it. I spoke to a U.S. State Dept. representative about this. He told me the State Dept. picks up the cost of evacuating families of U.S. employees...so tax dollars cover that. However, they'll also evacuate any other American who wants out of Japan, but those people must then reimburse the government for flights.
At this time the evacuations are "voluntary." About a hundred Americans left Japan yesterday on the first charter flight and have arrived in Taiwan.
They don't know how many people will choose to leave, so they don't know the total costs of the evacuation. Of course, if things get worse in Japan, the "voluntary" evacuation could become mandatory.
What would you do if you were in Japan right now?
