The CEO of the Burning Man Festival is insisting she’s not panicking, despite President Biden being briefed on the chaos at the event where tens of thousands of people were trapped.
The festival is a weeklong camp-out held in the Nevada desert, which culminates in the “ritual” of a 40-foot effigy being set alight.
However, flooding during the event this year has meant roads in and out of the site were shut, with guests forced to share food and water.
On Sunday, President Biden told reporters the White House was monitoring the situation, adding: “We’re in touch with the local people. We’re paying attention. We ought to be getting everybody out of there.”
Clips on social media showed visitors wading ankle-deep in mud around the festival site, with many people choosing to make the miles-long journey out of the desert on foot in order to get home.
Select types of cars—many of which had off-road wheels—were also able to navigate the boggy terrain.
Comedian Chris Rock and DJ Diplo were among those who hiked their way out of the site, before being rescued by a passing vehicle.
But despite the DJ saying that attendees were scared by the prospect of being stranded in the desert, the CEO of the event said there was no cause for an emergency.
“People are here as they normally would, with everything they need to survive. There’s no big sense of panic; we’re not doing an evacuation. We’re waiting for the ground to dry,” Marian Goodell told NBC News.
Goodell insisted that visitors to the festival—of which there are normally around 70,000—knew to come prepared.
“There’s no great chaos, there’s no great panic,” she reiterated. “One has to understand that for who we are, being here in this location—we’ve chosen a dry lake bed—the environment is always a survival environment.
“We bring all the infrastructure we need to survive, and so do the individuals that come and camp here. So until next Wednesday it’s not really an emergency situation.”
Visitors usually begin leaving Burning Man on Monday but many were forced to delay until Tuesday when the roads began to dry up.
“We’ve done what we needed to do internally to make sure the toilets were pumped, that there’s food and water,” Goodell added.
The Burning Man Festival did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
During his interview on Sunday, President Biden also noted that one person had died during the event.
Local authorities named the man as 32-year-old Leon Reece, who was pronounced dead at the site in Black Rock Desert.
Pershing County Sheriff Sgt. Nathan Carmichael told the Reno Gazette-Journal the death did not appear to be weather related.
Escape at last
At the time of writing, revelers were beginning to make their exodus from the site with organizers of the event opening the gates to leave.
The announcement that the roads had reopened was made at 2 p.m. on Monday; by late evening event organizers said the wait to get out was eight hours.
BURNED OUT: Drone and satellite images show a long line of vehicles leaving the site of the Burning Man festival in Nevada, after thousands of attendees were left mired in mud from torrential rains, https://t.co/rWGBxLtWgo pic.twitter.com/fq9q9AADQL
— ABC News (@ABC) September 5, 2023
Instead, they encouraged visitors to wait around to witness the annual burning of the man figurine.
Goodell said the issues had presented a “social challenge” that is one of the attractions of the festival, explaining: “We see it as a social challenge to maintain our existence here and to do it really civilly, and to do it with grace and patience—and that’s exactly what’s happening.”
While some on social media described the scene as “apocalyptic,” others echoed Goodell’s sentiments—saying strangers were sharing food, water, and shelter as well as offering lifts out of the camp.
“There was no cause for panic,” added Goodell. “We are accustomed to extreme weather here. It’s kind of part of the challenge and the ritual to actually being in the middle of extreme weather and work our way out of it gracefully.”
The CEO added agencies and the National Guard have been involved in meetings about the exodus from the camp, but they haven’t needed to be called in yet.
“This is not ending the Burning Man event by any stretch, it just makes us stronger,” Goodell added.
