Organizers had asked attendees to shelter-in-place on Saturday, as torrential rains turned the desert site into a mud pit. A driving ban has since been lifted, but it’s taking hours for most to exit.
Organizers of the annual Burning Man music and arts festival lifted a driving ban on Monday afternoon as muddy roads that had stranded thousands of attendees in the Nevada desert had dried up enough to allow people to begin leaving.
“Exodus operations have officially begun in Black Rock City,” organizers posted Monday at 2 p.m. local time, about seven hours before the festival’s fiery conclusion. The torching of a giant, faceless, man-shaped effigy was carried out Monday evening, after having been postponed twice due to the weather.
But as of Tuesday morning, the festival was asking participants to consider staying a little longer if they could. Traffic was so congested that it was taking drivers roughly seven hours to traverse a 5-mile route, pocked with puddles, to the nearest paved road.
And that was just the beginning of the journey home for the roughly 72,000 attendees who traveled to the festival’s remote site in northern Nevada, about 120 miles north of Reno.
Even during normal years, exodus traffic jams can last for six to nine hours, according to the organizers. Cars, trucks and RVs stuffed with sleeping bags, stoves and tents all cram onto a single two-lane road leading to the nearest major highway.
But this year’s participants had been stranded since Sunday, after storms turned the desert playa into a mud bath. Close to an inch of precipitation flooded the area starting on Friday, prompting event organizers to close access to the festival until vehicles could safely pass and to warn campers to conserve food and water.Wet weather didn’t dampen the Burning Man spirit
Despite reports of stuck vehicles, overflowing port-a-potties, postponed bus pickups and spotty Wi-Fi service, several attendees who spoke to NPR say the wet weather hadn’t dampened moods.
