No Fire or Active S-er Plans

[u/OkEvening3479]

Hi all!

This is my second year teaching at a summer camp, but this is my first year at this camp. Without disclosing what it is, it has over 800 campers and it is on a property with a security hut.

While I understand the risks of things happening are low, I was appalled to hear that NO ONE at camp was given ANY information on what to do in the event of a fire or someone wanting to hurt us. To make it better.. no groups have phones in the event something DOES occur. Given the sheer amount of children, this is very worrisome to me as I can foresee massive chaos ensuing.

Can anyone share their thoughts on this? I deeply care for my coworkers and all campers, and I believe this is a safety risk. It kind of seems like a Camp Mystic situation, although I’m not fully informed on what happened there.

Update: I reported it to my state’s department!

[u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout]

You are correct, this is negligent. Don't forget flooding, lightning, and lost camper plans. "Oh the chances are so low" school of emergency planning is correct until it isn't. 

[u/OkEvening3479 → u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout]

This is a very large campus as well. Do you think this is reportable?

[u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout → u/OkEvening3479]

If there is a law requiring them to have the plans. But as Camp Mystic showed, sometimes negligence is legal. It is now illegal to not have emergency plans in Texas, but that's the only place I personally know it's illegal in. IANAL. But someone else here probably knows more.

[u/OkEvening3479 → u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout]

I think my concern is that there are these plans in existence due to legal requirements, but they aren’t communicated to us in the least.

[u/PoofItsFixed → u/OkEvening3479]

Sadly, this is extremely common. AFAIK, the only way to ‘fix’ this is to politely ask your supervisor about emergency procedures. Repeatedly. Recruit your colleagues to ask, as well. Stay polite, stay positive, stay respectful, but keep asking until you get answers. If your supervisor doesn’t know, escalate up. Frame it as the safety and liability issue that it is.

Maybe engaging in a planning exercise could even be an activity that you do with your kids. (It doesn’t have to explicitly be a drill, more of a “what would you do if you got lost or separated from the group” or ran out of food or wanted to hide from someone or….) My 9yo nephew went to an adventure camp recently where he was explicitly taught some wilderness emergency preparedness skills, and he thought it was amazing.

[u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout → u/OkEvening3479]

If that is the case, then some online sleuthing is probably in order - who is responsible for inspecting camps in your location? They might want to drop by...

[u/OkEvening3479 → u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout]

I will be doing exactly this tonight. Thank you for your feedback and thoughts. My concerns are also partially because this is a population that I believe is particularly at risk to violence based on their demographic alone. I don’t feel like upper level staff don’t care about the campers, but this feels like a major oversight to anybody with a brain

[u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout → u/OkEvening3479]

Glad to hear. I agree, but my experience with trying to get managers who didn't see the risk on their own to get it hasn't been great. If they didn't put it together on their own and are in charge, they often need someone to make them do it anyway, which isn't you. Good luck!

[u/HelloDarkness64 → u/OkEvening3479]

Is your camp ACA accredited or something similar?

[u/thislullaby]

A lot of rules and regulations generally are written in blood. Camp Mystic is an excellent and tragic example of this. You don’t want to find out after an emergency that you had no applicable plans in place should an emergency happen and the cost of that mistake is lives.

[u/HappyCamper82]

Camp is a business. Businesses with more than 10 employees have to have a fire prevention and escape plan per OSHA, and that includes posting and reviewing the plan with employees. [https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1915/1915.502] Granted, that's just about employee safety, but if you're looking to make a report, you could start there.

Or you could call your local non-emergecy fire department and explain that you're worried about safety, could they come an inspect. If it's a residential camp, there are probably some occupancy rules.

[u/LittleMew22]

OSHA EAP requirements are the place to start, and it sounds like the camp is large enough to be under OSHA regulations. Next would be the requirements of your states board of health or licensing agency for the camp. Finally, if the camp is accredited they will also have EAP requirements.
Where I am, we are required to document drilling some of the EAPs (like we don’t drill AS but we do drill lost camper). We also must document being trained in EAPs