Social media seems to be laughing its ass off about this tragedy, is it because the folks at burning man are perceived as frivolous hippies or something? Everyone I’ve ever met who was a regular burning man attendee has been a solid human being with strong morals, personally and financially responsible, a career. Upstanding members of society for sure. I guess all some people know is the sensationalized drugs and sex. A person died. This is a tragedy for an event that brings positivity into the world. Kind of annoyed.
AFAIK it’s a dried-up lake bed that rarely experiences this kind of thing during BM week.
Maybe I’m wrong, tho.
rarely
And yes, when rain rains on a dried lake bed (playa, not “beach” in spanish), you get lake.
Climate change means the cilmate will not stay the same.
It’s rained a bit while I was there years back, but not to this extent. Not that it wasn’t always a possibility though.
Pard, you sure as shootin’ got that part right.
And I’ve barely been following this year’s event at all. If heavy rains were indeed predicted, then it seems to me that at the very least, the organisers have some pretty colossal questions to answer.
Huh?
We can’t predict weather past about 7 days at best. “We” meaning humanity, “weather” meaning weather (not climate). I am pretty sure we can’t forecast how climate will change.
But the organizers of the event having pretty colossal questions to answer makes little sense to me in regards to flooding. BM was held on the beach in california until the gathering got too big and moved to the desert. The BLM gives BRC (BM) a permit each year (so far) and limits the population - they also controll ingress and egress to BRC. The gate to BM is sometimes closed whilst people are still in line, because the population has reached capacity. Population being something on the order of 75k each year, a lot les than coachella.
But again, burning man is a temporary event that creates a temporary city (BRC, black rock city), each year, come rain or snow. You really cannot come to this event and expect everything to go exactly as planned. There is medical (free medical, actually) there, but that doesn’t mean you can count on them to save your life. You should bring 1 gallon of water per person per day you plan on attending, at least, you should bring more meds than you think you’d need, etc… etc… It’s survival.
Heads will not roll because the rain happened. Nothing new about being told to shelter in place - when it rains even a bit on the playa, this happens. It just hasn’t happened to this extent, but there’s always a first for everything.
Much of what I’ve read confirms things you’re saying, and to be clear, I’ve never been there myself. I’ve only read about the event, including first-hand accounts, and seen video footage.
My point about the rain is that in the immediate days preceding the event, surely the organisers had a chance to examine the weather report and realise that at the very least, a strong advisory should have been sent out, or maybe even the festival cancelled. Also, is it possible they didn’t know how treacherous the soil there could get with heavy rain?