Operation Chico was a

Civil Defense Civil defense ( en, region=gb, civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from man-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, miti ...

exercise conducted December 6-7, 1958 which consisted of a strategic evacuation of approximately 500 families from

Solano County, California Solano County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield. Solano County comprises the Vallejo–Fairfield, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is ...

to the city of

Chico, California Chico ( ; Spanish for "little") is the most populous city in Butte County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 101,475 in the 2020 census, reflecting an increase from 86,18 ...

and overnight care for the evacuees.Operation Chico was only a test
/ref> The purpose of Operation Chico was to test protection measures against atomic bomb fallout and other major disasters. The plan was designed to test: a) the feasibility of an evacuation route designated in 1955 for Solano County exclusive of the city of Vallejo; b) plans for the control of a sizable group of evacuees; c) registration and assignment to

billet A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alth ...

s of such a group; d) mass feeding facilities and operations; and e) plans and procedures for

continuity of government Continuity of government (COG) is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of a catastrophic event such as nuclear war. COG was developed by the British government bef ...

s of evacuated jurisdictions. An “emergency” reception base was set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. The evacuees were registered and assigned billets with private families for one night. The test was the first mass evacuation in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in which residents were quartered away from their homes overnight. The evacuation was scheduled to occur on the anniversary of

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

. The operation was observed by top national and state civil defense officials and was declared a complete success. Chico was subsequently named as the

provisional capital A temporary capital or a provisional capital is a city or town chosen by a government as an interim base of operations due to some difficulty in retaining or establishing control of a different metropolitan area. The most common circumstances leadin ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the event that

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

needed to be evacuated.News From Our Past, Chico ER, 6 Dec 2008

Criticism

Carl E. Hein, assistant professor of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

at what was then

Chico State College California State University, Chico, or commonly, Chico State, is a public university in Chico, California. Founded in 1887, it is the second oldest campus in the California State University system. As of the fall 2020 semester, the university had ...

paid for an ad titled “A Test of What” that disputed the operation’s

credibility Credibility comprises the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Credibility dates back to Aristotle theory of Rhetoric. Aristotle defines rhetoric as the ability to see what is possibly persuasive in ...

. There was no panic that might have altered the “successful” evacuation of Solano County and the parade-like atmosphere became a subject of controversy. In his ad, he pointed out that the evacuation of U.S. cities following a

nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

would be impossible because shortly after an alarm had been sounded, bottlenecks would completely choke up the

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

s, and there would almost certainly be widespread

panic Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...

. He went on to say that indulging in fantasy operations such as Operation Chico would only obscure the real dangers that threaten mankind if we assumed that exercises like this would provide protection against nuclear disaster.

References

{{reflist 1958 in California Anti–nuclear weapons movement Chico, California United States civil defense History of the San Francisco Bay Area History of Solano County, California Continuity of government in the United States History of Butte County, California