Burning 2023: Chaos amid Burning Man exodus as victim identified
An epic eight-hour traffic jam saw fights break out as burners attempted to flee the mud-soaked mayhem en masse. See photos.
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The Burning Man festival turned into a mass exodus as almost 70,000 people attempted to flee the mud-soaked mayhem, with fights breaking out among the exhausted burners stranded in the desert.
As police identified the deceased victim as 32-year-old Leon Reece, festival organisers pleaded for people to stagger their departure as an epic traffic jam backed up an estimated seven hours on the five-mile road to the nearest highway.
A cause of death has not been revealed for Reece, who was found on Friday evening local time as heavy rain fell over the Black Rock desert.
“Pershing County dispatch received a call regarding a male subject who was on the ground and unresponsive at the Burning Man Festival and medical personnel were administering CPR to the male,” Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said in a statement.
“In consultation with the Bureau of Land Management and the Burning Man Project, there is no validity to any reports regarding an Ebola outbreak, or any other disease.”
The last Burner Express for this year is Tuesday, September 5th at 10am to Reno.
— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 5, 2023
The wait time to leave the event is 8 hrs.
If you can, please get a good night's sleep and leave later 🥱
Allen added that fed-up attendees “lashed out” at each other after finally being allowed to leave only to stall in the line of cars backed up on the only road out of the campgrounds.
The festival’s Burning Man Traffic Twitter account counted down the exodus time from a high of eight hours to a low of five hours.
“As usually happens in what burners refer to as the ‘default world’ people allow their emotions to override their reasonableness and they are lashing out at each other as they leave the playa and attempt to make it to their next destination,’ he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Organisers called on the estimated 64,000 remaining visitors to delay departing from the site -- a dried-up lake bed in a remote patch of the Nevada desert – until Tuesday local time to avoid massive congestion on the way out.
“If you can, please get a good night’s sleep and leave later,” the organisers wrote on social media.
Festival-goers had been stranded after torrential rains, described as two to three months’ worth in the space of hours, came down Friday night and Saturday, turning the venue into a murky quagmire.
Among them Aussie singer Casey Donovan who rode out the drama.
Donovan shared photos from the muddy pit amid the exodus with the caption: “Burning Man Dump...Sun, Dust, Rain, Mud...Good times, good people, spectacular art and memories and stories for a lifetime.”
TRAVEL RESTRICTION LIFTED
New details were released about the death of a man at the Burning Man festival as a driving ban was lifted after torrential rains left nearly 73,000 attendees trapped at the desert site. Event organisers officially lifted a driving ban Monday afternoon local time and said “exodus operations have officially begun in Black Rock City” – the makeshift city that’s erected annually for the event.
Burning Man descended into chaos over the weekend as severe storms and flooding caused festival-goers and their vehicles to become stuck in knee-deep mud as revellers were urged to stay put and conserve water, food and fuel.
Officials revealed on Saturday, local time, that one man had died at the Nevada desert festival and have since stated that the death was “unrelated to the weather”.
The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the death but rumours have circulated online including false claims of an ebola outbreak.
In a statement made to indy100, the Bureau of Land Management’s (which oversees the Black Rock Desert site) public information officer for Burning Man said: “I can confirm the event entrance was closed for the year because unusual rainfall caused muddy conditions where there was a full stop on vehicles, and not for an ebola outbreak. We have heard no information of any participants with ebola.”
Meanwhile, festival organisers ploughed ahead with plans to stage the iconic finale featuring the burning of the huge human effigy.
“The Man burn will not happen tonight, Sunday, it is now scheduled for Monday 9/4, at 9pm,” festival organisers said in an update on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theories are circulating about the event’s descent into chaos, with conservative politician Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that Burning Man’s washout was not caused by climate change but was an “act of God.”
Greene joined fellow conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his Info Wars show on Sunday night, where they aired their beliefs about the festival.
“There’s 73 to 75,000 in the Nevada desert right now at this Burning Man. They’re locked in,” the notoriously right-wing congresswoman said.
US President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation at Burning Man.
“Administration officials are monitoring the situation [and] are in touch with state and local officials. Event attendees should listen to state and local officials and event organisers,” the pool report says.
While some vehicles were able to leave, others got stuck in the mud, organisers said on the event’s website.
More heavy rainfall is likely with the National Weather Service office in Reno forecasting storms, hail and high wind gusts.
The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the family of the person who died had been notified, but that no further information was available because inquiries were continuing.
Footage showed people trudging through flooded fields and dense mud with some wearing garbage bags tied around their shoes.
Some revellers left the site by walking out of site, which is a three-hour drive from the nearest airport in Reno, but most of the vehicles and motorhomes were stuck in the mud.
The week-known festival is popular with celebrities and is held in Black Rock City, a temporary community that pops up each year in the middle of the vast desert and is known as “the playa”.
CASEY O’DONOVAN STUCK AT BURNING MAN
Australian singer and actor Casey Donovan, comedian Chris Rock and DJ Diplo were among those stranded after the massive storm.
Rock and Diplo shared their experience of escaping the sodden festival.
Despite the restrictions on driving away from the site, Rock and Diplo managed to walk through the mud for eight kilometres before a fan picked them up in a drier part of the desert, and gave them a ride in their truck.
Diplo shared a video of the pair fleeing the chaos to Twitter/X, writing in the caption: “Just walked five miles in the mud out of Burning Man with Chris Rock and a fan picked us up.”
“I legit walked the side of the road for hours with my thumb out cuz I have a show in dc tonight and didn't want to let yall down,” he wrote, joking that all Rock “could think about was a f***ing cold brew”.
“Shout-out to this guy for making the smart purchase of a truck not knowing it was for this exact moment.”
The Grammy winner posted pictures of himself safe and sound on-board a plane after the ordeal, the New York Post reported.
“They didn’t believe we would walk six miles in the mud. No one believed we would get to DC for the show tonight,” he captioned a mud-stained selfie. “But God did.”
In an Instagram post, Donovan described the conditions and shared a photograph of a rainbow over the soaked and muddy campground.
“Here’s a fabulous picture of a full rainbow putting on a show for some smiles in not such an ideal situation!” she wrote.
“Found some Wi-Fi … Have been rained into the playa (ground) here at Burning Man. Good thing is, we are safe, we have food and ‘dryish’ shelter it is very moist here and forecast is for more rain over the next few days … fingers and toes crossed for some sunshine to clear things up.
“But for now, ChoooookAsssssses and I’ll get in touch when I find some more Wi-Fi.”
A week earlier, Donovan shared her excitement about attending the legendary event, this year called Black Rock City 2023 Animalia.
“Adventure time … BRB,” she posted on Instagram.
Attendees opened their R.V. campers to those who had been staying in tents, which were the most vulnerable to the water, festival goer Kaz Qamruddin told The New York Times.
“This is a very kind, open, sharing, giving community,” he said. “We’re safe. I feel good.”
Road gates in and out of the Black Rock City venue were closed, but some desperate attendees trudged on foot for hours to reach the nearest road and hitch a lift out.
“It was an incredibly harrowing (10km) hike at midnight through heavy and slippery mud, but I got safely out,” lawyer Neal Katyal said on social media.
“It is very slippery and the mud is like cement and sticks to your boots.
“No one should try this unless in good shape and part of a group. These are dangerous conditions to hike and will likely get worse.”
“You can’t really walk or drive,” a young woman with dreadlocks named Christine Lee, a circus performer, said on TikTok. Internet service was not available or patchy, she said.
“My boots are five inches, and the mud became five inches so I was kind of on stilts,” Lee said, adding people were being told they may be stuck until Tuesday.
“We have enough tuna for a week so we’re OK.”
Pershing County Sheriff’s Sargent Nathan Carmichael told CNN the conditions are difficult.
The muck “seems to stick to people, stick to tyres (and) makes it very, very difficult to move vehicles around,” he said, adding that most RV motorhomes were stranded.
The organisers warned only some four-wheel drive vehicles with all-terrain tires were able to move.
“Anything less than that will get stuck. It will hamper exodus if we have cars stuck on roads in our camping areas, or on the Gate Road out of the city,” they said on a “2023 Wet Playa Survival Guide” special web page.
If necessary, they said it was possible to walk to the nearest road, where buses would be provided to take people to Reno.
Mobile phone trailers were being deployed and the site’s wireless internet was opened for public access.
“We have done tabletop drills for events like this. We are engaged full-time on all aspects of safety,” organisers said.
Last year, the festival contended with an intense heatwave and strong winds. Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man aims to be an undefinable event, somewhere between a celebration of counterculture and a spiritual retreat.
The festival — for which tickets cost hundreds of dollars — culminates each year with the ceremonial burning of a 12 metre effigy.
It has been held since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwest Nevada, which the organisers are committed to preserving.
– with AFP
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