Texas responded to last summer's camp tragedies with three bills. These regulatory actions are direct responses to climate change and its impact on outdoor programs.
Here's what's now required of licensed youth camps in Texas:
Written emergency plans covering floods, severe weather, fires, lost campers, intruders, and epidemics, submitted to the state annually
Evacuation routes posted in every cabin, lit at night, with designated emergency gathering areas
Weather alert radios in each cabin
Monitoring of National Weather Service alerts and emergency alert systems that function without internet
Annual staff safety training and camper safety orientations at the start of each session
Parents must sign acknowledgments if any portion of the camp is in a floodplain
Licensing fees increased from $750 to $11,000 for large overnight camps
Backup internet infrastructure, including fiber, for emergency communications
Most of this is foundational risk management and much of what we already talk about in our field (check out the Wilderness Climate Lab group on LinkedIn). The informed consent piece, which requires parents to sign an acknowledgment that any part of the camp is in a floodplain, is interesting and worth thinking about.
That last one, though, backup and hardwired internet, raises an interesting point.
Legislators know that many camps aren’t able to meet it. A preliminary survey found more than 200 Texas camps don't have access to fiber. That’s potentially a significant reduction in the number of camps that won’t get a license this year, and won’t be able to operate. Remote camps, unfortunately, take the brunt of it.
We don’t yet know the impact, if any, on other remote or wilderness-based programs, even though there are more ways than ever to get and share information to/from the field.
The outdoor programming industry has always preferred to self-regulate, especially in the US. Standards and accreditation exist in large part because of a long-standing concern about government involvement. As a side note, I have a hunch that we’ve also exported that thinking abroad, as we’ve run and built programs internationally and grown accreditation.
Our field is fragile.
I first realized this in Korea after the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. After over 200 students on a field trip died, the government shut down all off-campus programs in the country. Our program was, literally, illegal.
Society has an enormously high expectation for safety and trust in educational programs, including camps and outdoor programs. In that way, we’re similar to the airline industry. When something goes wrong, the public demands governmental action and accountability. Think about what the Boeing failures did to public trust in aviation. Our field occupies that same space.
I still sigh in relief when I board a plane, and it’s an Airbus aircraft.
Society is protective of children, and it should be. Our argument has always been that programs are good for kids. But that value isn't always understood at the governmental level. When something goes wrong, the response is always regulation.
Some of it is thoughtful; some of it is disconnected from how programs actually work and how we know we can manage risk.
Whether you operate in Texas or not, these new laws are worth reading and auditing your own programs against.
Not as a compliance exercise, but as a conversation with your leadership team and board about where your gaps are.
Stuart
P.S. Both articles are worth reading. Texas Tribune | KXAN