Edmonton – The organizers of the Canadian Summer Camp say they hopes that the severe flash floods in Texas expect an impact of emergency plans and preparations in summer this year after killing more than two dozen campers and camp consultants in Texas on Friday.
Alberta Summer Camp Director and Board Vice Chairing Brad Halsi of Alberta Camping Association said, “If I have not seen a lot of people who are looking at it and reflecting their policies, there are many people.”
“I’m stopping and inquiring ‘Are our policies to sniff?”
Halcy, who helped running a summer camp to north of Edmonton, said that unlike the disaster killed in Texas and Camp Mystic, Wildfires prove to be the main threat to their camps and camps in Alberta.
“But at the same time, it is really the same thing whether it is fire, flood, whatever it is. You still need the same plan,” he said.
“Does the leaders know where to go? Do we have muster points? Do we have a clearance plan? And have we practiced it?”
For Summer Camps in Alberta, Halsi said that all those questions should be a huge answer yes.
Alberta Camping Association – A voluntary regulatory body – member sets standard for things such as safety and emergency preparations for camps, of which more than 40 are.
Halsi said that members camps require crisis and disaster plans, trained and qualified employees to execute plans, which are regular practice exercises.
He said, “Depending on the needs of that community, there is finally a bit of nuances,” he said, given that emergency plans are separate for every camp, which will be separated based on places and facilities like nearby water bodies and facilities.
Almost every province has its own version of regulatory bodies such as the Alberta Camping Association to regulate the summer camp, and Halsi said that some insurance companies require that the camps are in good condition.
There is also a national body – Canadian Camping Association – which oversees provincial bodies.
In some provinces, such as Ontario, there are provincial laws that make camps mandatory for security schemes.
The previous president of the Ontario Camps Association, Eric Shendelman said, “In Ontario, I can safely say that we have put our heart and soul in preparation for emergency and crisis.”
Chendelman, an expert on drowning and injury to a swimming school in Toronto, said that he hoped that summer camp organizers across the country would have reviewed their plans and readiness after news outside Texas.
“It’s surprising how a painful landscape, such as, even if it is in another nation, is the wave effect,” he said.
Shendelman said that he was not sure that if any extended plan measures would protect preserved campers in Texas.
Camp Mistic had its own emergency plans – the schemes that inspectors signed two days before the flood.
It is not clear that the employees followed those schemes, because when the US National Meteorological Service released a flood watch a day earlier, the campers were not taken to high ground.
Shendelman said that the organizers of the Canadian camp are considering what they would have done if they kept in a similar situation.
“We have heard from many directors who are quite concerned,” he said. “We are trying our best to find experts who can help in this flood management sector.”
Back in Alberta, the flood of Texas comes only as his co-director of the Dariel Rideon and Bar Harbor Camp train before the summer season.
Rideon said that the position of Texas has helped drive the house at the point that emergency preparations need to be taken seriously.
“We don’t just talk about these things to talk about them,” Ryardon said. “If something like this happens, then you have to know what we are doing.”
He said that in 170 km south of Edmonton, for Bar Harbor, wildfire is the biggest risk every year.
Rideon, who is also a member of the Alberta Camping Association Board, said that in his 20 years of participating in the bar Harbor – both as a tourist and employee – the fire never damaged the camp or led the withdrawal.
But this does not mean that the camp feels that it will not happen any day.
“We need to ensure that we know what we are doing, if we do this for a huge forest fire, we do not end in such a situation where we have all these casualties,” he said.
With files from Associated Press
This report of Canadian Press was first published on 9 July 2025.
Jack Farell, Canadian Press
