I was a camper and later counselor at a camp in the Northeast USA in my younger years. I suspect it was not unlike a secular Camp Mystic.
These experiences were formative to me, and my heart breaks for the families who have been impacted by this terrible natural disaster.
One thing I will add to the discussion as to the location of the cabins / younger campers nearer to the riverbanks. In my experience, camp leaders need to balance a lot of risks, not just the risk of flooding.
There are high frequency/low severity risks (e.g., stomach bugs, homesickness). There are two-campers-a-summer risks (e.g., broken bones, concussion). There are every-several years risks (e.g., intruders - usually non-custodial relatives). There are also every-many-decades or never risks, like the kind of flooding that happened. The policies of the camp, the staff practices, even the layout of which campers sleep where considers ALL of these risks. It’s an Imperfect situation - balancing choices that help mitigate the stuff camps see day in and day out and those they hope never happen.
The summer I was 11 was my 3rd summer at my camp, which was all girls. It was the first summer that I was old enough to be in a cabin with all campers, no counselors. There was a nearby counselor cabin. One night, I woke to a man in my bed. There was another on the bed of my bunkmate. Naturally, I was terrified. I’ll spare the details but I was fully unharmed, and the young men were drunk, in the wrong place, and did not want or try to hurt us kids.
In the subsequent conversations with my parents about how the camp practices were designed (and later amended) to prevent this kind of stuff, we learned a lot about cabin design and camp layout.
I have no idea whether Camp Mystic actually took sufficient steps to understand and mitigate the risks of floods - but I do strongly suspect that the decisions were complicated and well considered.
These experiences were formative to me, and my heart breaks for the families who have been impacted by this terrible natural disaster.
One thing I will add to the discussion as to the location of the cabins / younger campers nearer to the riverbanks. In my experience, camp leaders need to balance a lot of risks, not just the risk of flooding.
There are high frequency/low severity risks (e.g., stomach bugs, homesickness). There are two-campers-a-summer risks (e.g., broken bones, concussion). There are every-several years risks (e.g., intruders - usually non-custodial relatives). There are also every-many-decades or never risks, like the kind of flooding that happened. The policies of the camp, the staff practices, even the layout of which campers sleep where considers ALL of these risks. It’s an Imperfect situation - balancing choices that help mitigate the stuff camps see day in and day out and those they hope never happen.
The summer I was 11 was my 3rd summer at my camp, which was all girls. It was the first summer that I was old enough to be in a cabin with all campers, no counselors. There was a nearby counselor cabin. One night, I woke to a man in my bed. There was another on the bed of my bunkmate. Naturally, I was terrified. I’ll spare the details but I was fully unharmed, and the young men were drunk, in the wrong place, and did not want or try to hurt us kids.
In the subsequent conversations with my parents about how the camp practices were designed (and later amended) to prevent this kind of stuff, we learned a lot about cabin design and camp layout.
I have no idea whether Camp Mystic actually took sufficient steps to understand and mitigate the risks of floods - but I do strongly suspect that the decisions were complicated and well considered.
