Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt held a ceremonial signing of HB-1675, a camp safety law requiring summer camps and outdoor programs across the state to assess their site-specific hazards and prepare for severe weather emergencies.
HB-1675 requires all camp facilities, youth camps and outdoor programs in Oklahoma to conduct a site-specific hazard assessment and develop an emergency action plan before Jan. 1, 2027, with reviews every three years thereafter. The law takes effect Nov. 1, and the new safety standards will be in place for the Summer 2027 camp season.
The bill comes just a year after the first anniversary of the tragic floods at Camp Mystic in Texas, which killed 27 campers and staffers known as the Heaven’s 27. It is part of a growing national movement led by families of the Heaven’s 27, now known as the Safe Summers Foundation. The movement aims to establish stronger laws ensuring summer camps have reasonable protocols for emergency situations.
Kevin Stitt (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
The Safe Summers Foundation has advanced camp safety reforms in Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past year, with more states to follow when legislatures reconvene in 2027.
Stitt was joined at the signing by the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Josh Cantrell, R-Kingston, and Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, along with advocates from the Safe Summers Foundation.
Under this new law, each summer camp’s emergency action plan must include response protocols for the severe weather hazards applicable to the site — including flooding, high winds and tornadoes, hail, lightning, extreme heat or cold, and wildfires or smoke — as well as evacuation routes and access to emergency shelter.
Camps and programs also must maintain two independent methods of receiving severe weather alerts, including at least one method that does not rely on cellular service, along with an internal communication system and procedures for notifying guardians.
Potential threats and emergency response procedures must be disclosed to all participants, and staff are required to complete annual emergency and hazard recognition training, as well as conduct periodic drills.
The law also allows regulating authorities to impose corrective action plans and civil penalties, including closing facilities, for material noncompliance.
“Every parent who sends a child to summer camp deserves to know that if a disaster strikes, the adults in charge will be ready,” said Blake Bonner, co-founder of the Safe Summers Foundation.
“We are deeply grateful to Gov. Stitt for standing with Oklahoma’s families, and to Rep. Cantrell and Sen. Seifried for their leadership in carrying this bill across the finish line. Because of their work this session, kids who attend camp in Oklahoma next summer will be better prepared and protected from preventable harm. This is exactly the kind of common-sense progress the daughters we lost would want to see happen, and we will continue working hard to ensure other states follow.”