How many people are stranded at Burning Man? Festival attendees warned not to move
Attendees of the 2023 Burning Man festival got an unexpected surprise, a deluge that left the temporary city a muddy mess and them stranded in it.
What started out as a small affair among friends in 1986 to celebrate the summer solstice on a beach in California has morphed into a massive counterculture arts festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Nowadays, tens of thousands of ‘Burners’ flock to the makeshift city that appears for eight days on the bed of a long-ago dried up ancient lake.
While partygoers may have been accustomed to dealing with high temperatures during the day and an occasional dust storm, they got an unexpected surprise on Friday this year. A rare deluge left the temporary Black Rock City a muddy mess and its inhabitants stranded within. Some tried and were successful in escaping but the vast majority of the roughly 70,000 attendees had to ride it out making the best they could do with the situation.
As of Monday afternoon, when the exodus could begin after the driving ban was lifted, around 64,000 people were believed to still be on site. Many of them, provisions permitting, may just choose to stay on through one more night so as to witness the festival’s giant namesake effigy go up in flames.
The burning of the Chapel of Babel and the Man are scheduled for 9pm local time Monday night (midnight on the East Coast).
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Burning Man festival attendees warned not to move
Officials closed the five-mile dirt road to Black Rock City, located around 120 miles north of Reno, and required vehicles to stay put after the area received from three-quarters of an inch to 1.5 inches starting late Friday. Some ignored the warnings and tried to make their way either in their vehicles or on foot through the slop.
While some got out, others weren’t so lucky. Some found their vehicles stuck up to the wheel rims in the sludge or the trek to difficult to keep going and were forced back.
One such attendee who tried to make it out on foot with his luggage in tow, a veteran ‘burner’ who works in finance in New York Brian Fraoli, gave up on his escape. Instead, he sat back and enjoyed the experience. “When you get pushed to extremes, that’s when the most fun happens,” he told Reuters. “Overall it was an amazing week and next time we will be more prepared,” he added.