RENO, Nev. (AP) — The entrance to the Burning Man counterculture festival in the Nevada desert was closed on Saturday and thousands of attendees were urged to stay at the site as flooding from storms swept through the area.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The entrance to the Burning Man counterculture festival in the Nevada desert was closed on Saturday and thousands of attendees were urged to stay at the site as flooding from storms swept through the area.
The entrance will be closed for the remainder of the event, which began on Aug. 27 and was scheduled to end on Monday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the Black Rock Desert where the festival is being held.
More than one-half inch of rain is believed to have fallen on Friday at the festival site, located about 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Reno, the National Weather Service in Reno said. At least another quarter of an inch of rain is expected Sunday.
Organizers urged festivalgoers to conserve their food, water and fuel.
Officials haven’t yet said when the entrance was expected to be opened again.
Messages left Saturday afternoon by The Associated Press for both the Bureau of Land Management and the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office, the agencies that closed the entrance, weren’t immediately returned.
Photos published by the Reno Gazette Journal showed festivalgoers with garbage bags wrapped around their legs as they walked through mud. The newspaper reported that organizers had started rationing ice sales. ___ This story has been corrected to say that the amount of rain Friday at the festival was believed to be more than one-half inch, not half a foot, and that another quarter of an inch of rain, not another quarter of a foot, was expected on Sunday.
