Just nine months ago, parts of Camp Canaan were under 7 feet of water, with decades of work destroyed.
Floodwater from Tropical Storm Helene covered the camp’s multipurpose room, where campers spend their lunches laughing and bonding. Water lines left marks on the camp’s yurts used for sleeping. The welcome center needed to be completely redone.
Nine months later, the final fixes such as new plumbing are still being completed. But the camp rebuilt the welcome center, took out a Small Business Administration loan, invested in flood insurance to protect parts of the camp and started construction of a new dining hall that will be weather-proofed.
A recent storm is bringing heightened attention to that work.
Just 11 days ago, torrential rainfall swept through central Texas killing at least 120 people, leaving around 160 missing, CNN reported. Located in a flood-prone area of Texas, a local Christian camp, Camp Mystic, lost 27 campers and counselors in the storm.
Camp Canaan also sits in a flood plain, and the camp staff have spent the past couple weeks putting campers’ families at ease about their ability to handle any storm, said1 camp executive director and co-founder Matt Harper.
“Our hearts broke like it put me in pretty deep depression that Saturday. When I got the news, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I didn’t know their directors directly, but I have a lot of friends kids that go to that camp,” Harper said.
Harper sent out emails to campers families to explain there is an emergency action plan and constant communication with Duke Energy, which operates the Lake Wylie Dam adjacent to the camp.
Located on Fewell Island on the Catawba River in York County, the 100 acres of land has been a place for thousands of kids from ages 5 to 16 to unplug and dive into the outdoors.
Founded in 2004, Camp Canaan became a nonprofit organization and phase one of its 10-year plan began. After the construction of cabins, music pavilions and more, the doors opened in 2009. It built a swimming pool complex, high adventure course and a championship disc golf course.
Registration for the summer fills as early as December, and the camp serves 200 children each week, totaling 1,800 children a summer.
It welcomes children from all over. Some families even travel from Virginia and Georgia to stay at Camp Canaan.
Camp Canaan has had an emergency action plan for years that’s approved by York County officials and Duke Energy.
The plan includes an evacuation process with a bus that sits in between the sleeping cabins and brings all campers to Westminster Park — the meeting point for when the camp needs to take everyone off the premises.
According to section 4.3 of the camp’s handbook, all directors and staff are trained on proper communication steps and the protocol for any emergency situation. Directors and staff are also CPR and first-aid certified in addition to a nurse who is on the grounds 24/7.
Counselors learn to read water levels, perform face counts— instead of headcounts to account for each camper personally — and repeat counts on evacuation buses.
To start the each day, staff take attendance. There are no visitors allowed unless approved by staff or in case of emergency, according to Harper. Visitors also are required to wear identifying lanyards when walking around the camp grounds
Outside of the camp grounds, there are protocols to be followed by York County Emergency Management.
In case of emergency evacuation, Chuck Haynes, York County Emergency Management director, is in charge of coordinating routes to shelter as well as communicating with the county’s public information officer to provide the public with any updates.
Right next to the camp are the hydro stations run by Duke Energy, which controls water releases into the Catawba River.
On a daily basis, Duke Energy and Camp Canaan staff communicate about water rate changes the camp might see because it’s immediately downriver from Lake Wylie Dam. Duke also communicates with the camp whenever there is severe weather storms coming in and about predictions for rainfall or resulting water levels.
Prior to Helene, the camp faced another 100-year flood incident in 2019. At the time, the camp had 50 campers and 12 staff members on the property. All of them had to evacuate at 3:30 a.m.
With only one way in and out, the camp had to move quickly to get over a wooden bridge held up by metal poles onto the main land.
Harper said Duke in 2019 did not predict that the water would exceed the river’s typical threshold. Campers and staff took a shuttle bus to Charlotte as the camp alarm siren went off. Sleepy-eyed campers got on while counselors and staff tried to remain calm.
“So we had to cancel camp that week in 2019, but we got back open by the next week. We had three industrial pumps out here, pumping off the island to get back to normal,” Harper said.
The camp followed each step of their emergency action plan to control the situation in 2019. However, no plan was able to prevent Helene steamrolling through Western Carolina.
“The office we’re sitting in. It had 4 feet of feet of water in it,” Harper told the Herald.
He learned Helene’s water would be released through Lake Wylie’s dam three days before the flood, but no one predicted just how much water was on the way.
All the camp’s buildings are built to withstand a 100-year flood without damage, but they are not made to endure a 1,000-year floods such as Hurricane Helene without damage.
After canceling the Navy retreat planned for that week, the camp closed its doors while the post-Helene damage was repaired.