It's easy to imagine scenarios that would have it spread in the US.

1) Scenario : some guy/girl lands in Florida, later that day goes for a swim in a big swimming pool with some 100+ people in it because it's a very hot day. Half of those people are on holiday and return to various places in the US before exhibiting symptoms.

2) Ebola is known for spreading fast in hospitals

3) Definitely diagnosing ebola takes several days

The problem with ebola (and all the MRSA variants, a number of which do spread through the air, and a few others) is that it can go from a few patients infected to turning hospitals into death traps in 2 weeks flat.

I don't think it's possible for the virus to survive in a pool because of the Fluoride.

Chloride. The pool water is chlorinated.

I haven't yet seen a paper claiming either way. It spreads through fluids, so likely it can remain stable in chlorinated water for at least a few seconds.

I agree there could be a wide initial spread, but I really feel that it would be contained much more efficiently in, for example, the US or UK than is possible in the outbreak areas of Africa, so the outcome would be a lot less catastrophic.

Define "epic proportions", because it seems that your threshold for "epic" is way too low. 10x more people are killed on US roads each year.

The original claim would be hyperbolic, except that someone killed in a car crash doesn't increase the risk to other people on the road, but an Ebola infection certainly does. In the mathematics of exponential increase, a small initial amplification factor can produce very impressive results in a short time. Consider the hypothesis that just 1% of Ebola sufferers infect other people. Using this well-established mathematical method:

y' = y (1+p/100)^t

y = infected population % at time zero.

y' = infected population % at time t.

t = time in consistent units

p = percentage increase for one unit of time

So, if it takes a week for the infected population to increase by 1%, then:

http://i.imgur.com/TDPd7ug.png

IOW if after a week the infected population has increased by 1%, after a year (52 weeks) the infected population has increased by 67%. After 2 years (104 weeks) the infected population has increased to 281% of the original. And so forth.

This isn't true for car crashes, and the above is what is meant by an "exponential increase".

If the ghosts of people who died in the road began to spook drivers and cause more accidents, you would see a rapid spike of mortality in the short term, followed maybe by change of behavior where ~90% of traffic is composed of professional bus/truck drivers that are hardened and not easily affected by ghosts.