[filwtqdr] evacuating Rhode Island by ship

xkcd "what if?" contemplates the grisly aftermath of the world's entire population brought (magically) to Rhode Island: "Within weeks, Rhode Island is a graveyard of billions."

but what if a lot of planning were done beforehand to prepare an exit strategy?

we explore cargo ships, because they are huge.

it is shamefully the U.S., in its slave trade, which has had extensive experience in shipping humans at ultra-high densities on cargo ships, so it makes sense to conduct the experiment in the U.S.  (another country has experience in shipping humans at inhumanely high density by rail, not explored here.  but how much of that knowledge is preserved?)

according to Wikipedia, the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, China, handled 1 billion metric tons of cargo tonnage 2017.  assuming a human weighs 100 kg, that port handles the mass equivalent 7 billion people every 250 days.  satellite imagery of the port shows a great many unoccupied berths, suggesting a billion tons is the port still not operating at full capacity.

therefore, evacuating the world population from Rhode Island by ship in a reasonable time frame seems within the realm of possibility.

we imagine all of Narragansett Bay converted to a giant port to handle the exodus.  perhaps shift the site of The Jump to the east by a bit to allow use of the whole coastline (e.g., Fall River, MA).  probably have a fleet of special ships constructed and stocked in advance to densely transport humans, perhaps ideas from old slave ships scaled up to the size of modern cargo ships (or beyond, future post slzhkgde).

although humans (probably) don't pack as densely as ore, oil, or shipping containers (what is shipped to and from Ningbo-Zhoushan), we are self-propelled, so maybe loading can be done very quickly.  how to load people quickly is the major unknown of this plan, the bottleneck.

the ships sail to many transshipment centers distributed anywhere but Rhode Island.  they have been constructed in stocked in advance, so can process people more leisurely, eventually getting everyone home.

previously: strategic planning to make the exodus worse.