These are alternative ways to keep the tents dry ... which entails that they were never soaked in the first place.

> A tent that’s been in a lake

The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water.

> sounds like a throwaway to me

Do you have any experience with this? I've been on trips where tents and even sleeping bags ended up in a river. They don't dissolve ...they can be dried in the sun. And a tent with a wet floor can be wiped down.

> “Just take the tents out of the water”.

Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words and not just your mental images.