The Playa Safety Council continues to work well together to oversee and ensure playa safety, and as such it needs less face-to-face meetings to do so.
The PSC is made up of representatives from Gate Perimeter & Exodus, Black Rock Rangers, Department of Mutant Vehicles and the Emergency Services Department.
Gate spent much of the year expanding operations and planning new and improved systems to cut down the wait time on opening night. This paid off with a drastically reduced backup on opening night, and much more efficient operations overall. Perimeter increased staff and coverage for 2012. And, after the long exit lines in 2011, Exodus was basically a non-event in 2012. The Exodus team is still making plans to help ensure such a smooth exit in the future. Traffic management was a big topic for most of the department in 2012, and will be for the foreseeable future.
The Black Rock Rangers continue to refine and expand operations as the Black Rock City population grows. Changes for 2012 included implementing an Incident Management System, and longer operations for better coverage pre- and post-event. The Law Enforcement Agency Liaison (LEAL) team continues to work with the various law enforcement agencies to foster good relations and cooperation between Law Enforcement and Rangers.
The Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV) further honed its systems in 2012, and improve our service to the MV community. A big project came unexpectedly early in the year when tickets sold out and we helped to facilitate MV groups into the Directed Ticket sales system. DMV also rolled out a new MV Sound System policy.
Burning Man’s Emergency Services Department earns its reputation as one of the most sophisticated and responsive emergency services providers anywhere. Their reputation is built on a solid incident response and communications infrastructure, giving them the ability to respond to any incident quickly, efficiently and effectively. Further, their relationship with Humbolt General Hospital (HGH) who provide on-site medical services, obviates the need for many trips to Reno to obtain advanced medical services for Burning Man participants.