Black Rock City, Nev., where the Burning Man debauchery festival is held annually, turned into a swamp this year after heavy rains blasted the desert party and trapped some 73,000 attendees in the "muddy hellhole."
According to reports, event organizers barred Burning Man attendees from leaving the area because "widespread muddy conditions created treacherous driving conditions."
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Burning Man tweeted that all attendees would have to "hunker down" in their campsites because a slow-moving rainstorm is hovering over the area and blasting it with torrential rain.
"Check on your campmates and neighbors to make sure they're ok, and help them as needed," Burning Man told attendees. "Take advantage of a moment of calm to connect with campmates and hunker down."
Not only were the "poors" stopped from leaving Burning Man, but so were the tech cent-millionaires and billionaires who flew there on private jets to party in the desert – and who now have no way to leave, even if they wanted to.
"The gate and airport in and out of Black Rock City remain closed. Ingress and egress are halted for the time being, including Burner Express Air and Bus. No driving permitted on playa except for emergency vehicles. If you are in BRC, please shelter in place and stay safe."
(Related: Remember back in 2019 when Burning Man attendees trashed the desert and created an ecological apocalypse?)
Is the Burning Man swamp an omen of what is soon to come for the rest of America?
Seeing as how there is no mobile phone reception or internet at Burning Man, the 73,000 people who are trapped there will have to rely on good old-fashioned smoke signals if they hope to communicate with the outside world – that or they will have to borrow a wealthy attendee's satellite phone, assuming it still has a charge.
Some attendees with satellite phones tweeted photos of their muddy boots along with complaints about having to stay inside their tents all day because of "three inches of slippery mud outside and another inch of rain coming," to quote one person.
"We haven't left our tent all day, except to bring a campmate a shovel."
Others tweeted photos of themselves trudging through the mud with large trash bags covering their bodies. Since the Black Rock Desert is normally dry as a bone and hot, very hot, this time of year, nobody expected a torrential downpour for several days straight.
The following photos show a double rainbow and completely flooded-out campsites, which is a real sight considering how Black Rock City normally looks:
Double rainbow sunset. pic.twitter.com/iX6CfRgshe
— andrew hyde (@unicorn) September 2, 2023
Perhaps the most disturbing element of the Burning Man disaster this year is the fact that the place is littered with outhouses that are filling up fast, and that cannot be drained as normal.
"With attendees told to conserve food and shelter in place, the road closures mean cleaning and servicing of the thousands of portable toilets used by attendees has been suspended," reports explain.
One woman tweeted that all of her "45-year-old pals" have been complaining all over Facebook about how this year's Burning Man was a "total disaster."
"What did you expect?" this person wrote, adding that everyone at Burning Man who thought they were going to get some summertime desert fun is "now sad as they sit in alkaline mud in Nevada."
"'Drowning Man' is the first thing that came to my mind," one commenter wrote on a news story about the fiasco, further noting that alkaline mud is not exactly what attendees want to have rubbing against their skin for days on end.
Perhaps the time has come to put an end to Burning Man? Learn more at Twisted.news.
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