@ai6yr Person in my immediate family has a friend whose brother & wife were going to burning man, leaving 6-year-old son with grandparents.
But child got covid, and elders didn’t want to be exposed. Parents’ solution was to take him with them, which they did. They are at the event in these conditions with a 6-year-old child that has covid.
Clip from the Burning Man radio station about not going poo, and porta potties being "backed up". And also "finding a container and peeing in it instead" 😟
@ai6yr They talk a lot about having no environmental impact on the location...sure won't be the case this year. I guess it will be an opportunity to study e. coli survival in desert lake pans.
@W6KME They just broadcast a radio message saying to "not call 911 unless it's a real emergency" lest they "negatively affect our ability to get through this event" 🤔
@ai6yr They just said if you try to leave by walking across the playa to the blacktop road, state troopers are waiting there...to arrest you for trespassing.
@cat_static@ai6yr Omgs I was wondering if anyone would just abandon camp and try hiking out. Properly equipped, I would. Jail sounds a lot more sanitary than the cholera salt flats.
@deewani@arisummerland@ai6yr I think they left early enough the authorities hadn't decided their plan (or special treatment). I heard that message last night.
@cat_static@arisummerland@ai6yr Makes sense, makes you wonder why more didn’t try, especially given the many days they are going to be trapped. Unless they had a lot of stuff they didn’t want to leave behind in their vehicles.
@deewani@arisummerland@ai6yr I'm guessing combo of stuff, denial, sunk-cost, lack of transportation or anywhere to stay, not checking weather ahead of arrival, and spotty coverage to check forecast once there. 💩🌪️
@cat_static@arisummerland@ai6yr I wonder what the current power situation is like for cell phones, etc. Vehicles & generators may need fuel soon. I don’t even know if that region gets cell coverage or if they bring in portable towers.. How long will they have internet? etc.
@cat_static@arisummerland@ai6yr OK I just looked at the website, lot of my questions were answered by the survival guide. Seems like they are kinda prepared.
@deewani@arisummerland@ai6yr Yeah, and I saw a comment the portos were able to be serviced today, which makes or breaks the tolerability of the situation.
@kellyromanych Unfortunately, as I have learned, "nonprofit" doesn't mean you're not paying the executives a huge amount of money. See that a lot. In this case, probably less crazy than the nonprofit that states it is collecting "cars for poor orphans and windows" paying their execs a king's ransom and giving the orphans and widows $2.50.
@__josh@ai6yr I was thinking more along the line of won’t someone earning 6 figs be thinking about public welfare at the event? I thought civic responsibility was one of their pillars.
@kellyromanych@__josh They should have some professional event experience, although your mileage varies on how good folks are at contingency planning... I don't know this crew. There's the "let's run this really cool event, keep expenses down and make some dough" people, and there is "our job is to make sure this event goes off without a hitch.. make sure we have the contingency plans in place". Not idea how these folks are.
@kellyromanych@__josh Well, looks like it has exposed their oversight on the reliance on porta potties being emptied by large trucks for human sanitation. Sometimes the most basic of things breaks well laid emergency plans.
@ai6yr@kellyromanych yeah there's Children International which is always collecting in the mall by me. I just yell at them "Your CEO makes $4 million a year!" anytime they try to harass me.
@kellyromanych@ai6yr I went in 1997, and that was a financial disaster. The Washoe County Sheriff took the entire "gate". I suspect they were under considerable pressure after that to be more professional with their finances. It's basically unrecognizable these days compared to then. (1998 was the last year I went.)
@ai6yr I commented somewhere else that I doubted very few brought a bucket and litter but then remembered my porto-bucket is Reliance brand, which is now unavailable for purchase 😂
@ai6yr Sadly, this I expected. Having attended a (smaller) festival where similar happened (loos got overloaded bc heavy trucks couldn’t get up a hill through the mud to service them for a few days) I can attest it’s a health and sanitation nightmare. At least we were closer to civilization and could get out by car even with the mud. ☹️
I read this entire thread and I sure as hell hope there is a massive airlift operation planned because walking around in the muddy shit of 60,000 other people is going to turn this into a mass casualty event in no time. 🚨
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