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Camps are set on a muddy desert plain on September 2, 2023, after heavy rains turned the annual Burning Man festival site in Nevada’s Black Rock desert into a mud pit.
JULIE JAMMOT/AFP via Getty ImagesPolice are investigating the death of one person at Burning Man as 70,000 festival attendees remain stranded in Black Rock City amid a storm that transformed the arid desert into a dangerously boggy mess over the weekend.
A dispatcher with the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office told SFGATE the death occurred during the storm, and the individual’s family has been notified. No other information was immediately available as the death is under investigation.
The weeklong counterculture festival typically ends on Monday, with most attendees leaving starting Sunday in a mass departure known as “exodus.” But people have been forced to shelter in place, conserving food and water until further notice as all roads leading in and out of the festival stay closed, and officials wait for the ground to become dry enough to greenlight safe transportation.
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Attendees walk through a muddy desert plain on September 2, 2023, after heavy rains turned the annual Burning Man festival site in Nevada’s Black Rock desert into a mud pit.
JULIE JAMMOT/AFP via Getty ImagesMeanwhile, most festival goings-on, including the annual burning of the massive wooden “man” effigy and all other scheduled burns, were “halted or significantly delayed” due to “unusual weather conditions” on the playa, read a Saturday press release from Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen. Mild to heavy rain inundated the area for several hours, making it nearly impossible to drive out; some Burners walked as much as five miles through the mud to escape the conditions, including comedian Chris Rock and DJ Diplo.
Attendees look at a double rainbow over flooding on a desert plain on September 1, 2023, after heavy rains turned the annual Burning Man festival site in Nevada’s Black Rock desert into a mud pit.
JULIE JAMMOT/AFP via Getty ImagesThe sheriff’s office and Bureau of Land Management said they have plans in place to respond to the playa “for emergencies only” and that extra resources had been assembled from around Northern Nevada to “assist with providing people with medical needs on the Playa until people can do it on their own.” Both agencies said they are also attempting to help with cell service so festival attendees can contact their loved ones and make travel arrangements as needed.
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Since Friday, six-tenths to eight-tenths of an inch of rain have fallen over the desert. (“Around here, that amount of rain is not significant, but when you have 70,000 people out there who can’t move, it’s significant,” National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Johnston said.) A chance of rain and thunderstorms, as well as small hail and isolated wind gusts of up to 40 mph, remains in the forecast through Sunday night, and conditions are expected to clear on Monday, the weather service said.