State evacuated one thousand people — basically huge (7)
I believe the answer is:
immense
'huge' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'state evacuated one thousand people basically' is the wordplay.
'state' shows a homophone (sound like) (I've seen 'stated' mean this).
'evacuated' suggests removing the centre.
'one' becomes 'any' (any one).
'thousand' becomes 'm' (synonyms).
'people basically' becomes 'mense' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'any' with its centre removed is 'ay'.
'ay' is a homophone of 'i'.
'i'+'m'+'mense'='IMMENSE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for immense that I've seen before include "Huge, really great" , "Mammoth" , "Unusually great in size" , "Unusually large or great" , "'Vast, colossal (7)'" .)