Ashley Dickens, a nurse and mother in Springfield, Tenn., was already a bit nervous. She was days away from dropping off her 11-year-old daughter, Natalie, at summer camp, the first time that she would be attending.
Then came the tragedy at Camp Mystic in Central Texas, a flood on the Guadalupe River on July 4 that swept away trees, belongings and the lives of more than two dozen campers and staff members.
Ms. Dickens and her husband watched the news last weekend with horror, immediately asking themselves whether they could bear taking Natalie to camp after all.
“Oh gosh, we went back and forth several times on whether to send her or not,” she said. “We got online, searching what body of water was near camp, trying to figure out the likelihood of anything happening.”
Across the country, the scenes of muddy destruction at the riverfront Camp Mystic left Americans in shock and anguish, wondering how so many young lives could have been lost. The flooding took on particular resonance for campers, parents and directors at thousands of overnight camps, which are places of refuge and adventure in the heart of their summer season.
Camp directors spent this week reviewing their safety and security protocols. Some camps added even more safety procedures.
And they reassured fearful parents, who called and emailed with their worries about entrusting their children to counselors and staff members at overnight camps far from home, where they routinely experience threats of thunderstorms, tornadoes and other natural disasters.
“They’re asking the simple question, ‘Is it safe?’” said Gregg Hunter, the chief executive of the Christian Camp and Conference Association, an organization in Colorado Springs that provides guidance to hundreds of faith-based camps. “And they’re saying, ‘How can you prove to me it’s safe?’”
Camp directors said they had been shaken by the scenes at Camp Mystic, where cabins close to the river were inundated with floodwaters in the middle of the night. The camp’s co-owner and executive director, Dick Eastland, was among the dead.
Jon Bisset, the director of River Valley Ranch in Manchester, Md., is used to monitoring weather reports closely.
On Wednesday, he was tracking a rainstorm that hit his camp, which is about 45 minutes north of Baltimore.
When Mr. Bisset received a warning of flash flooding, he ordered that some campers be moved to higher ground and sent texts to parents, informing them of what had happened.
Mr. Bisset waited until the rain stopped and a nearby river began to recede before he fell asleep.
“We know there’s a heightened sensitivity to flooding,” he said. “I would hope that every camp is asking: ‘Are our protocols robust enough? Is there anything we can do to improve this or that?’ It’s a reminder that freak things can happen and we need to be diligent about that.”
Part of the experience of summer camp is what its directors call “safe risks,” learning to master skills that bring physical and mental challenges: sailing, rappelling, horseback riding.
Facing those challenges is one of the triumphs of camp, directors said, allowing children to build leadership skills, grit and emotional intelligence.
“There’s inherent risk in many of the activities we do — my job as camp director and my team’s job is to mitigate that risk,” said Jud Millar, director at Stone Mountain Adventures in Huntingdon, Pa. “Camp is such a great place for kids to build independence. It can be one of those real first major experiences that you have away from the family unit.”
The American Camp Association offers resources to camps and an accreditation program that includes standards for emergency preparedness.
“In light of recent events, many camps are busy boosting efforts to reassure families by answering their questions and transparently communicating the protocols in place to protect their children,” Henry DeHart, the interim chief executive of the American Camp Association, said in an email.
At Coldstream Christian Camp in Adams, Tenn., the camp staff does not worry much about flooding, said Roger Dunn, the director.
But after seeing what happened at Camp Mystic, Mr. Dunn decided to equip counselors with walkie-talkies even at night, as an extra precaution.
“We now are all connected through a mode of communication that we know will work,” he said. “We pray that nothing would ever happen where we would have to use that mode of communication.”
James Rock, executive director of Trout Lake Camps in Pine River, Minn., said he had received emails from parents this week asking if the camp was located on a floodplain and what its emergency procedures entailed.
The 300-acre camp is equipped with a siren on its grounds that the county government installed years ago, high-tech radios and even a device in Mr. Rock’s office that beeps when there is a lightning strike nearby.
It is not unusual, Mr. Rock said, for weather-conscious staff members to be texting each other at 2 a.m. about a passing storm, monitoring its progress. And if they are concerned that the weather will be severe, they move the campers to safety.
“If we see a storm coming, we’re pretty much in shelters already,” he said. “I think most camps are working so hard to be safe and overcorrecting, if anything.”
In the end, Ashley Dickens and her husband, the parents from Springfield, Tenn., who had wavered on whether to let their daughter go to camp, went ahead and allowed her to go this week after all.
Their daughter, Natalie, persuaded them. Her two best friends were also attending, and she was looking forward to spending the week with them.
At home, Ms. Dickens has been monitoring the weather.
“If it was up to me, I probably would have kept her home,” she said. “But I think her excitement about camp overrode my fear.”
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
The post ‘Is It Safe?’ As Parents Weigh Risks of Summer Camps, Owners Review Safety Measures. appeared first on New York Times.
