FEMA responds to Burning Man rumors as thousands flee festival

The Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) has responded to unfounded claims circulating on-line that it had been deployed to the Burning Man pageant after floodwaters quickly prevented 1000’s of attendees leaving the positioning within the Nevada desert.

Wild theories of an outbreak of Ebola and cases of cannibalism have discovered a large viewers on social media after one particular person died within the freak occasion brought on by the remnants of a strong storm. Native police haven’t disclosed the character of the loss of life and stated that investigations have been ongoing.

Festivalgoers have been instructed on Monday it was protected to go away the positioning, after the flooding turned the often dusty Black Rock Desert playa into delicate mud, limiting automobile motion. A sluggish exodus of an estimated 70,000 attendees started the identical afternoon.

Whereas revelers had been instructed to “shelter in place,” claims surfaced on-line that the incident had been declared a nationwide catastrophe, that the flooding was one way or the other a canopy story for the virus outbreak on the camp, and {that a} fence had been erected across the web site as a quarantine measure.

“There have been no requests for FEMA help or assets from native or state authorities associated to Burning Man,” David Passey, a spokesperson for the federal catastrophe company’s regional workplace, instructed Newsweek. “Subsequently, there aren’t any FEMA personnel or groups responding.”

He added that employees “proceed to observe climate and weather-related impacts as we do throughout our area day-after-day.”

Each the pageant organizers and clinicians who had been at Burning Man denied any viral outbreak—not to mention one attributed to Ebola, the final recorded outbreak of which within the U.S. occurred in 2014.

“The net rumors of transmissible sicknesses in Black Rock Metropolis [the Burning Man festival site] are unfounded and unfaithful,” the Burning Man Mission wrote in an replace on Sunday.

“There isn’t any Ebola circumstances right here,” Jenna Roxbury, a nurse and Burning Man attendee, knowledgeable her almost 700,000 TikTok followers on Sunday. “I am listening to all types of rumors [about what] is occurring with us right here. We’re doing our greatest, we’re Burners, we’re hunkering down.”

“FEMA is just not right here, there may be not a fence going up across the perimeter,” Roxbury added. “We’re nonetheless simply seeing right here on the playa, on the hospital, damaged bones, UTIs, some strep throat—the same old.”

Some festivalgoers opted to go away regardless of the muddy circumstances, together with some who hiked their solution to the closest freeway. On Monday, when queues to go away the positioning have been estimated to be over 5 hours lengthy, the organizers instructed “hanging out” for longer till the backlog had cleared.