As thousands of people remain unable to leave the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert after heavy rains inundated their campsites with ankle-deep mud Saturday, authorities say they are investigating a death at the event.
Attendees were told to shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert and conserve food, water and fuel after a rainstorm swamped the area, forcing officials to halt any entering or leaving of the festival.
The remote area in northwest Nevada was hit with 2 to 3 months worth of rain – up to 0.8 inches – in just 24 hours between Friday and Saturday mornings. The heavy rainfall fell on dry desert grounds, whipping up thick, clay-like mud that festivalgoers say is too difficult to walk or bike through.
0.8 inches…
Funny how so little fucked them so much!
They’re also at the lowest drainage point for that whole valley. Plus, the properties of the lakebed make it so that water is very slow to soak into the ground, so it’s going to take a while for things to dry out.
Hey, 0.8 inches is completely acceptable and it gets the job done. It’s not the size of the dingy but the motion in the ocean…or in this case it’s not how much you fill the graduated cylinder but how dry the soil is.
On a more serious note, this has the potential to become a huge tragedy; there are 10’s of thousands of people out there with limited resources and more rain is coming. I hope that things stay under control.
Burning man is held on a dry lakebed, funny thing about lakes is that they tend to form in the places water naturally tends to accumulate, it just happens that it’s a desert, so normally there’s no rain so no water. So basically any rain that falls in the area tends to drain to the burning man playa, while only .8" fell directly on burning man, a decent amount more accumulated there.
The soil there also tends to turn to mud, and there’s no real plants with root systems and such to help hold it together.
everyone loves to have a hate boner for this festival so how would you feel if it closes? one less fun thing in the world, even if it may not be your cup of tea. all the good festivals shut down where i am and it just feels so ‘sterile’ now
people die at burning man all the time. this wouldn’t end the festival.
it’s a fun time, but it’s definitely not for people without some disposable income. many people will budget a thousand bucks or two as the logistics required to camp there are serious.
we all know that you could spend a thousand dollars on something more useful to society or whatever, but most of the people hating on it aren’t doing shit.
All you folks bashing Burning Man obviously have never been.
Well yeah…because it sucks…
I wonder if any of them called the cops to suggest that the puddles had a gun. Any reports of the popo ramming the rain?
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I hate to sound callous, but I don’t feel much sympathy for a rich person who went out to the desert to pretend to be a hippie and didn’t check the weather forecast.
I used to run in a party crowd that had a LOT of burning man folks in it. There were a couple of them that had middle class incomes, maybe even leaning upper middle class. Those are usually the ones that had an art car or whatever that they sank some money into, instead of the crap that most upper middle class Americans blow their money on.
But the rest of them? They worked at restaurants, did massage therapy, teachers, etc. normal people with median or lower incomes that would forego other expenses to set aside a little a money for their annual get high in the desert trip.
Yes, there’s a bunch of elitists at the core of the event, but it’s not the majority.
TLDR: The trend of wealthy people is going up while the less wealthy trends down.
People tend to acquire wealth over time? There is a solid correlation between wealth and age, so this shouldn’t be surprising in the least. And especially those who had time/energy to spare to attend festivals earlier are especially predisposed for acquiring now wealth down the line. Assuming that they return over the years, all of this is pretty much to be expected.
They still should have checked the weather report.
I didn’t say they were smart people. Just not all rich people.
Even if they had checked the weather, would they have known 0.8 inches of rainfall translates into being stranded in the desert and possible death? I’ve never been to BM or spent time in a desert so this is news to me. Were people warning about this and attendees just ignored it?
That’s a fair point, but at the same time the desert is well known for being the harshest of all environments on earth. It’s surprising so many people treat it like just a drive to the store.
Yeh I don’t understand it either. I’m from Australia. Driving into a desert sounds like a pretty dangerous thing to do, no matter what the weather forecast is.
Nah they know rain turns everything into quicksand. But it doesn’t create a situation more lethal than daily life there.
Yes. You need to stay out of the desert if there is any rainfall. That is basic knowledge you should know before going out there.
And done what exactly??
It rains there sometimes. Forecasts change wildly day to day regardless. But it’s a desert and the water typically evaporates so quickly that an hour later there’s no evidence it rained.
Not to mention, it’s unlikely the person died from being trapped in the rain. I’m not sure why the article mentions both things except to give news about the event conditions I guess.
And not gone into the desert in the first place. This is basic knowledge when going into a desert.
Have you ever gone outside?
With that attitude, the only difference between you and the type of rich person you seem to despise, is wealth.
Dude shut up. Plenty of non rich people go too. In fact, the chill guy I procure cartridges from is there now and I’m actually concerned. He’s just a normal dude. I mean…he LOVES weed but besides that lol…
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