Burning Man festival floods leading to people being trapped in the desert.

 

The Burning Man festival before the flooding. AP. 

The Burning Man festival has flooded leading to hundreds of people being stuck in the desert. AP. The festival attracts around 80,000 people a year to the Black Rock Desert but this year it was struck by a late summer rain storm that dumped as much as an inch of rain on the festival grounds. At least one person has died but it is unclear about the circumstances. The rain has caused the desert to turn into a mud pit with revelers having to deal with at least a foot of mud, which has made vehicle travel almost impossible. It is possible to walk out from the grounds as the nearest town is only six miles away. But the lack of vehicle access has prevented the delivery of supplies and the movement of vehicles. 

My Comment:

This story is fairly minor but it is trending, largely because of some pretty obvious false rumors coming from the site. According to the internet everyone at the Burning Man festival is doomed because Ebola, of all things, is spreading wildly through the campsites. 

This is not only false, it's obviously so. Ebola is a jungle disease that spreads through eating bushmeat from infected animals and direct contact with infected blood. It's also found naturally in Africa, not the western United States desert. Though we did have a case or two during the 2014-2016 epidemic, it's not found naturally in America and there is no viable way for it to have spread to Burning Man short of deliberate terror attack. That's even more unlikely as the same storm that disrupted the festival would have disrupted a bio-attack. 

Indeed, the situation isn't that serious. Someone died, but we don't really know how or why. It's not that surprising for a person to die in a festival like this even ignoring the fact that there were rains. Given the drug use at these kinds of festivals that alone could explain the death. 

And I think people could get out easily enough. A six mile hike in muddy conditions but all but the most feeble people could do it, especially if they take a rest or two and have plenty of water. Indeed, people have been walking out fairly easy, if Chris Rock can do it, most people can. 

I think the main problem is people don't actually want to leave yet. Part of it is people wanting to stay for the final events of the festival, where they burn the wicker man, but most of it is the fairly rational idea that people don't want to leave their vehicles and campsites behind. RV's and campers are not cheap and it's not something you want to just leave behind. 

Regardless, I think this situation will resolve itself pretty quickly as long as there isn't anymore rain. Once the ground dries out people will be able to drive out again. If rain comes again then things might get a little serious but I doubt that will happen. My guess is things will return to normal fairly quickly.