Dealing with Severe Weather

[dScouter15]

What plans does your unit have in place for dealing with severe weather while camping? Many summer camps have a system for warning campers, and designated shelter locations of varying quality, but these types of facilities normally do not exist at weekend camping sites, and even some council properties.

 

Fortunately, my troop has been lucky, and there's been only one instance in the past 12 years when we've had to take action due to severe weather. Nation-wide, severe weather doesn't seem to be TOO big of an issue to scout troops, as we only hear of few injuries, mostly caused by trees falling on tents.

 

This question was provoked after watching two funnel clouds form while at a council camping event. Fortunately, we only had moderate- to severe- storms in our area, but to our south, funnel clouds and a few tornadoes caused problems. So, does your unit have any type of definite plans in place? Has your unit ever had any severe weather problems? Am I over reacting? The common sense solution is to not put tents under trees, and just kind of scope out low-lying areas to take shelter in if necessary. Only had to do this once :-) .

[scottteng]

Many times the calls will be out of your hands. My son was evacuated to the mess hall for one night at summer camp tents don't hold up real well in a tropical storm. The entire troop was permitted to sleep in the lodge when temps went below freezing on our wilderness survival trip. I know you frozen wasteland types do that all the time but our Florida boys just don't have the proper gear for it. They were thrown off the state park island they were camping on by the ranger who himself was ordered to evacuate for a storm that turned out to be nothing. The current hyper awareness of weather has made everyone a lot quicker on the trigger to evacuate maybe a little more wait and see what develops is in order. I guess it is better to be safe than really sorry. Some minor discomfort though can be a valuable lesson learned.

[insanescouter]

On once campout I was on there were two adults and a small pick up. The kids were dropped of by a parent with a mini-van but they couldn't stay. Later that day a thunderstorm rolled in. No big deal where we live its common. But a lighten strike started a brush fire. We were told by the local volunteer fire department to evacuated, even though the fire was still on the other side of the mountain. They were afraid it would come over the ridge, and if it did we would of only had minutes to escape it. The problem was a different parent coming up that evening also with a mini-van wasn't due for like 5 hours. We with the reserved permission of the fire fighters stayed at the campsite for several more hours. But the glow on top of the ridge was growing brighter. Finally with about an hour to go we put all the kids in back of the pick up and headed down the dirt road to wait closer to the free way for the other parent. We meet the other parent about 75% the way down the mountain. The fire never came over the ridge.

 

The next committee meeting the decision was made no campout would occur unless enough seat belts for each person adult and youth was available the entire trip.

 

This may seem like an obvious thing, but when you know you have a small group of Scouts, as I recall it was like kids and 2 adults. And a parent can drop them off and a that evening another would be there for rest of the trip, would you cancel the event? At that point we were still a really small trip and we needed every activity we could just to stay afloat, keep the kids interested and keep them advancing.

 

Just something to think about... and more of my insane cents....

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org