Thousands trapped at Nevada’s Burning Man festival may have a chance of escape on Monday as improving weather conditions give the Black Rock desert a chance to dry out from torrential rains that hit the festival with heavy mud.
About 70,000 festival-goers, known as “burners”, were ordered to “shelter in place” and conserve water and food over the weekend after festival organizers said roads were impassable because of mud and not officially open.
In an update on Monday organizers said the single road out of the Black Rock City site remained “too wet and muddy”, though added it was drying and “exodus” could happen later in the day.
The festival tweeted: “Gate Road remains too wet & muddy for most vehicles to safely navigate out of BRC this morning, but is drying. Exodus likely to begin around noon today, Monday 9/4.”
In a later statement, organizers asked festival-goers to delay their exit until Tuesday to “alleviate large amounts of congestion throughout” Monday.
Mark Deutschendorf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno, said it should stay mostly clear and dry at the festival site on Monday, although some light rain showers could pass through Tuesday morning.
Access and exit to vehicles has been closed since more than half an inch (1.3cm) of rain on Friday drenched the Black Rock desert about 110 miles (177km) north of Reno.
With their party closed to motorized traffic, attendees trudged through mud – many barefoot or with plastic bags on their feet. Revelers were urged to conserve supplies of food and water, and most continued to hunker down at the site.
A few, however, managed to walk several miles to the nearest town or catch a ride there. The celebrity DJ Diplo posted a video to Instagram on Saturday evening showing him and comedian Chris Rock riding in the back of a fan’s pickup truck. He said they had walked six miles through the mud before hitching a ride.
Organizers have been trying to put this year’s problems in perspective amid the footage of heavy glutinous mud that paralyzed movement in and out of the site – and accounts of epic hikes to leave.
In an interview with NBC, the CEO of Burning Man Project, Marian Goodell, said that while thousands were stuck in the isolated venue there was “no cause for panic”.
“We do not see this as an evacuation situation,” Goodell said. “The water is drying up.”
Goodell characterized attention paid to the festival’s problems as needless, calling it “such a fuss”. Organizers, she said, had turned down an offer of help from the Nevada national guard.
But Goodell was optimistic that the extreme conditions this year would not mean that festival would not take place again. “This is not ending the Burning Man event by any stretch,” she said. “It just makes us stronger.”
The culminating event of the festival, the burning of a human effigy, is now set for Monday evening, two days after it was initially scheduled.
As many trekked miles to reach a paved road out of the event, others were not put off by the grim conditions.
Nathan Carmichael of the Pershing county sheriff’s office told the Reno Gazette Journal that his deputies were kept busy on Sunday investigating multiple calls – which turned out to be false – of a shooting and riot at Burning Man.
Carmichael said some calls came from overseas phone numbers and misinformation was circulating on social media, including an outbreak of Ebola.
“We don’t have any emergency concerns out there right now,” Carmichael told the outlet. “People are calm and doing OK.”
Remi Dessinges, a first-time burner, told the outlet the festival was fun until Thursday when it started to rain. “I’ll come back but maybe not next year,” he said.
Dawn Looney told CNN that burners were making the best of the situation. “We are great. It is a great community. We rallied together. Staff has plans X, Y and Z, and everybody’s kind of having a good time, oddly enough.”
“We are a little bit dirty and muddy but spirits are high. The party is still going,” said Scott London, a southern California photographer, adding that the travel limitations offered “a view of Burning Man that a lot of us don’t get to see”.
A man in his 40s died on Saturday on the site. Carmichael said the fatality did not appear to be weather-related but was still under investigation.
