Heavy rains drench Burning Man cleanup efforts

Friday, Sept. 11, 1998 | 9:38 a.m.

"Right now, it's pouring," festival spokeswoman Marian Goodell said Thursday. "We have flat-bed trucks in the mud and generators stuck in the mud."

About 15,000 people attended the annual Labor Day festival that is billed as a tribute to free expression and artistic creativity.

The festival concluded Sunday night with the torching of a 50-foot tall sculpture of a man, from which the event takes its name.

The rains came on Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday.

"It was a fine event. But since then, it's been tragic," Goodell said.

She was one of several people who had to abandon vehicles and belongings on the playa, at least for the time being.

"We can't go anywhere," Goodell said. "All of our stuff is in our RV out there."

"They playa is soaked," said Mike Bilbo, of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the desert about 120 miles north of Reno.

The BLM's permit gave organizers 14 days to remove trash from the site after the festival ended.

But he said an extension would be granted because of the weather.

"The extension is going to be based on the mud drying out," Bilbo said.

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