Tens of thousands of
people are being told to shelter in place
at the popular Burning Man Festival
because they are literally stuck
in the mud.
They're trapped after a rare, heavy rain
inundated campsites in Nevada's
Black Rock desert.
Thick ankle deep
mud is making it impossible
to walk or drive.
And more rain
is now likely this afternoon.
So to talk about all of this,
we're joined by Sergeant
Nathan Carmichael.
He's been in charge
of the Burning Man event
for the Pershing County
Sheriff's Office for about nine years.
Sergeant, thank you for your time.
So just lay it out for us right now.
What is the situation right now?
The last few days, we've gotten some rain
as the fire has gotten wet,
which makes it very greasy, very muddy.
Seems to stick to people, kick the tires.
Makes it very, very difficult to move
vehicles around.
Can you
talk to us about this death
we're hearing about
that is being investigated?
What do we know
about the circumstances of this death?
Do we know who this person is?
Male, female, participant,
where how this happened?
The death is under investigation now.
The person was found on the playa.
They had lifesaving
procedures were unsuccessful.
It is under investigation.
So I'm going to leave it
at that for right now.
And just give us a sense
also of the scale of this here.
I mean, how many people are stuck?
As we understand,
some people are getting out by walking.
But how difficult is it
to actually do that?
At the event from the county road?
34 is approximately in my
a little over a mile
So people are walking out.
There are people again stuck.
There are a few smaller
four wheel drive that have made it out.
Most of the RVs are stuck employees
are Burning Man
or the Pakistani
sheriff's office, along with BLM,
are asking people to stay in place
until the ground becomes hard
enough and safe enough to try to lock the
supply onto the roadway.
Sergeant, did you say
the estimate of number,
the number of people that you estimate
may still be there on site and stranded
because of the mud
Yesterday,
I was given a population
of a little over 70,000 people still.
Okay.
And and
the word is please shelter in place.
I hope you have enough food and water.
Do you know how the people are doing?
Have you
heard from the people on the ground
in terms of there
being enough food and water
and what the the I guess conditions are
and the amount of work
has continued to tell us that
people are in good spirits.
They are obviously sharing the community
very well
versed in sharing and doing
what they have to do to survive.
So I fully expect that if something is
or as
low resources, that a
neighbor will help them.
And that is very normal.
The town is used to bargaining
and sharing with each other.
So whatever resources are out there,
I'm sure that they will use
and help each other.
It's definitely a unique festival
where I feel like it's usually
usually
signature by by joy and creativity.
And so,
you know,
it is curious
to see how they're dealing with these
these conditions now moving forward.
How long do you expect
the roads to be closed
or at least difficult to pass on
for these folks?
Well, the good news is
the weather has changed a little bit.
So last night
it was supposed
to start raining about 2:00.
Looking at the forecast for today,
it's pushed out a little bit.
So hopefully that'll give these people
an opportunity to get off the fire.
It doesn't look like
it is going to rain as hard
as initially forecasted.
So, again, these are all positive things.
Normally the people are gone by Tuesday
morning anyway.
So it might be given an opportunity
to still be able to fly
in a decent amount of time.
And within the time period,
there will be some residual.
There always is, but I only believe that
within a reasonable
amount of time,
most of the people will be able to leave.
I do want to ask you and your time,
you know,
with the sheriff's office,
I mean,
have you ever seen anything like this
during your time
with this particular event?
I had of the 20 plus years
I've been doing this,
one of the years
that this happened in the past,
I didn't participate in it.
But the board has always worked
with law enforcement,
and the contributors
are cooperating and cooperative,
and we've always tried to
do tabletops to talk about
how are we going to get people off
if this emergency happens.
So the org and the people
that are involved
are always thinking about these things
and how we're going to deal with them
when they offer.
You know, we'll leave it there.
Sergeant Nathan Carmichael, thank you.
And we wish you all the best
and hopefully the roads open soon.
I have to say,
talking to the sergeant,
seeing some of the images,
there was this beautiful rainbow
that was put up
and I kind of summarized
I feel like the Burning Man Festival.
This is a place
where people come to celebrate.
They cut, they celebrate community art
and of course, self-reliance. Right.
So who better than to weather
this kind of situation
and the people that are Burning Man.
So hoping for the best.