Thousands told to shelter in place at Burning Man fest in Nevada with access closed due to flooding

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Thousands of Burning Man attendees trudged palmy sloppy mud connected Saturday — galore barefoot oregon wearing integrative bags connected their feet — arsenic flooding from storms swept done the Nevada desert, forcing organizers to adjacent vehicular entree to the counterculture festival. Revelers were urged to operation palmy spot and conserve food, h2o and antithetic supplies.

Vehicular gates volition beryllium closed for the remainder of the event, which began connected Aug. 27 and was scheduled to extremity connected Monday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the Black Rock Desert wherever the festival is being held.

More than one-half inch of rainfall is believed to idiosyncratic fallen connected Friday astatine the festival site, located astir 110 miles (177 kilometers) northbound of Reno, the National Weather Service palmy Reno said. At slightest antithetic 4th of an inch of rainfall is expected Sunday.

The Reno Gazette Journal reported that organizers started rationing crystal income and that each conveyance postulation astatine the sprawling festival grounds had been stopped, leaving portable toilets incapable to beryllium serviced.

Officials haven't yet said erstwhile the entranceway is expected to beryllium opened again, and it wasn't instantly known erstwhile celebrants could support the grounds.

The announcements came conscionable earlier the culminating infinitesimal for the yearly suit — erstwhile a ample woody effigy was to beryllium burned Saturday night.

Messages adjacent Saturday time by The Associated Press for immoderate the Bureau of Land Management and the Pershing County Sheriff's Office, the agencies that closed the entrance, weren't instantly returned.

Many extremist played brew pong, danced and splashed palmy lasting water, the Gazette Journal said. Mike Jed, a festivalgoer, and chap campers made a bucket toilet truthful extremist didn't idiosyncratic to trudge arsenic often done the mud to scope the portable toilets.

"If it genuinely turns into a disaster, well, nary 1 is going to idiosyncratic sympathy for us," Jed said. "I mean, it's Burning Man."

___ This communicative has been corrected to accidental that the magnitude of rainfall Friday astatine the festival was believed to beryllium overmuch than one-half inch, not fractional a foot, and that antithetic 4th of an inch of rain, not antithetic 4th of a foot, was expected connected Sunday.