Burning Man involves the construction and teardown of an art city each year in the desert of Nevada. As the festival wrapped in 2005, Hurricane Katrina too had just finished up.

The high winds and ocean surge from the monster storm devastated the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving its residents, at least the ones who still lived there, in need of everything.

About 2,000 people from Burning Man, many inspired by a preacher’s sermon on the final day of the festival, decided to head south and do whatever they could to help. Many put their unique building skills to work and began the gargantuan task of cleanup and reconstruction of the sunken region.

“Burn on the Bayou,” showing now only on The Documentary Channel, is their story. It is a powerful documentary that makes you realize the potential of life when people come together to help each other without the promise of financial gain.

“They took a neighborhood that was destroyed and had no hope and you gav’em hope,” said Martha Bryant, a resident of Biloxi, Miss., who witnessed the work of a group of volunteers from the art festival who named themselves “Burners Without Borders.” 

The Burners, many of whom were from California and Nevada, camped out from October until April. The first camp they set up in Louisiana became a distribution center for relief supplies.

The project they immediately jumped on was the demolition and reconstruction of a Buddhist temple destroyed by the storm. It had taken 18 years to raise the money to pay for the temple and four years to build it. The dedication of the temple was to take place the day the storm hit.

The Burners did some building, but most of their work involved the demolition and disposal of wrecked houses to make way for new ones. Luckily within several days of beginning that tiring work, Daewoo, a construction equipment company, donated to the group the use of a brand new backhoe. Now they really could make a difference.

They set up their second camp in Pearlington, a river town in Mississippi wiped out by the storm. There the work was more spiritually taxing than in Louisiana because there was more demolition to do than construction.

The Burners solved that problem with fire, their go-to solution. “You know for thousands of years fire has brought people together,” said Chris Neary, volunteer from Truckee.

Out of the clutter and destruction rose fantastic works of art punched together with nail guns and creativity. Everyone got together at night and burned the works of junk art, a ritual that revitalized and empowered the people. Watch “Burn on the Bayou,” it might do the same for you.

by: Gregory Crofton