- Thousands of people are stuck at Burning Man after a rainstorm brought muddy conditions.
- Scheduled concerts have been canceled and attendees are being told to ration food and water.
Angie Peacock may not have chosen the most ideal year for her first time at Burning Man.
On Friday, festival organizers told the thousands of attendees to "conserve food, water, and fuel" while sheltering in place after Black Rock Desert in Nevada experienced more than half an inch of rain, turning the desert sand into thick mud.
But Peacock wasn't fazed. On Saturday, she had just finished a naked mud run.
"This is my first time," she told Insider. "But you can still find joy in it, even though it's not going the way we planned it."
Peacock came to the festival grounds on her own on August 26 — just before the beginning of what is supposed to be a nine-day festival. She told Insider she was joining a camp of 300 people.
On her TikTok, Peacock has been documenting her Burning Man experience, sharing what it's like to shower in the middle of a desert as well as her first-time reflections.
"I just want to cry," she said in one TikTok video. "It's just so beautiful. It's like everyone's themselves, unapologetically. And it's weird, and it's twisted, and it makes you question your own sense of reality. And it feels like love and community and acceptance and fun. And just humanness, I guess. I love it. Can I just stay here forever?"
But on Saturday, Peacock had let her viewers know that she is alive and well. Her video was titled "Burning Man is Now Flooded Man."
@angiepeacockmsw Burning Man is now Flooded Man. #burningman2023 #burningman #blackrockcity #fyp #nomad #vanlife ♬ original sound - Angie Peacock, MSW, CPC
Her first thought when asked how everything was going? "It's very muddy."
Peacock told Insider her camp of 300 had begun rationing the food that was initially supposed to last until Monday. Water usage is being conserved for drinking and hand-washing, and the porta potties are "getting kinda full."
A physician told Insider the situation could cause health risks such as stomach bugs or food-borne illnesses.
All scheduled live music also has been canceled, Peacock said — performers must rely on generators for their music set, now reserved to sustain tens of thousands of people stuck at the festival.
Peacock said they might be stuck in Black Rock until Wednesday based on forecasted weather patterns but that her camp would most likely be able to sustain itself until then. Some people are keeping the festivities going, she added, turning on their own music, getting high, or taking advantage of the muddy situation with naked mud runs.
"We are meant to be fully self-reliant," she said, echoing one of the "10 Principles" of the festival, i.e. "radical self-reliance."
Still, Peacock may miss out on the culminating experience of the entire festival: burning the tall wooden effigy.
She told Insider that the event has been postponed, and it's unclear when they'll be able to do the final burn.
"I think they're going to do it, but they have to wait until the roads are better so the firefighters can get through," she said.