To be appalled by Grenfell all over again.

[derxa]

The enquiry has made cry and cry. The families' statements. So terrible.

Helena you are doing a great thing on these threads thank you for all your time on this.
That RNLI press release made me cry, in a different way. What an absolutely lovely response from RNLI in Cornwall and then to follow up in London.

Eliza, I would guess that is why the fire brigade did not issue a command to evacuate. It would have been drummed into them many times the dangers of a crush in conditions of smoke and panic. It's easy to say of course they should have evacuated but when you are running on adrenaline you can't always think past instincts and strong training.

Many of the firefighters did want to evacuate but it was up to their seniors to issue the command. They also talked about mass panic in an evacuation, especially in the smokey single staircase, you might lose as many people in the panic.

inews.co.uk/opinion/the-story-about-lushs-direct-action-you-wont-have-heard/

"On Friday, Lush launched their spy-cops campaign to much gnashing of teeth from some certain sections of the commentariat. The drive was designed to make the public aware of the practise of police infiltrating activist organisations to investigate and spy upon them. But it saw the company lambasted for apparently attacking British police. While Lush are in the public consciousness, we thought it would be a good time to highlight our experience working with them in the past. This is not to try and give Lush a platform (they’re more than capable of generating their own publicity). What we want to highlight is a political class that lets private enterprise fill in the gaps where they are not willing to operate

When the Grenfell disaster happened, there was much talk in the media, including from many parts of the Conservative Party, that this was a wake-up call. Britain needed to treat its most vulnerable with far more care and compassion. We had lost our way as a nation and it was time to correct that.

The sad truth is most of that was just bloviating. The local council would continue to let down Grenfell residents. One striking example of this was the council failing to supply translations of emergency information for residents in the immediate aftermath. For many Grenfell residents, English was not their first language, it may not have even been their second or third. Five days after the fire, Green campaigners and people working in the community on the ground noticed that the council had failed to provide information to residents in their first language. This meant that traumatised survivors, evacuees and witnesses were left without access to vital information.

This failure to provide translations exacerbated the lack of trust, as well as highlighting institutionalised indifference in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Without support from the proper authorities, we had to go elsewhere to ensure we got the translations provided as soon as possible. Determined to find a way to bridge the gap, we applied to Lush for funding as we knew they had previously given money to grassroots campaigns. We wrote to Lush at midnight on 26 June, and by 10am the next morning they had replied to say they would help. The funds they provided were then used to ensure vital information was translated. This provided a vital service to traumatised survivors, witnesses and residents. Not only was enough funding provided for emergency information, but also for blogs and community support that was translated into 22 languages. This was a huge endeavour and helped many families who had just survived the devastating disaster"

Ta Chatty.

I dont like the way the fire brigade are being treated over this. Im not seeing half the support for them that the police got after the Lush campaign. I can see why Lush did the campaign though im not sure they went about it in the right way I did not know about what they did to help the Grenfell residents until tonight.

the stairwell would have been thick with smoke and the walls and banister too hot to touch.

I too am finding the inquiry horrifying and am watching it closely.

I'm really upset to hear about the way the residents were treated.

the stairwell would have been thick with smoke and the walls and banister too hot to touch

Inevitably. The question is how long did it take for that to happen? We know from survivors that many were in the tower for quite some time before they realised that they had to try to escape and, awfully, we know some found bodies in their way.

I have relatives in the fire service so we've talked about it quite a lot. As a previous poster said, some firefighters wanted to go in and try and evacuate much earlier but their superiors said no. This is part of the Met investigation.

The reason the seniors said no, as I understand it, is that these blocks are designed to contain fire in each individual apartment. In which case, staying put would be reasonable advice. However, it was clear very, very early on, that something had gone seriously wrong because of the way and sheer speed with which the fire spread up the outside of the tower. Yet the orders remained AS IF the fire was being contained. That to my mind was a calamitous error of judgement, especially when so many "ordinary" firefighters on the ground felt they should be going in and trying get people out much earlier.

The cladding was the cause. Charges must be brought against the contractors at the very least. But I can see why the Met are investigating this aspect and why criticism is being levelled at the HIGHER level of the brigade. No criticism is being directed at the "ordinary" firefighters and nor should it, as their behaviour was exemplary.

I received a letter today from my HA They want to do a tenancy visit next week (on the anniversary of the Grenfell fire) following a recent Fire risk assessment of the estate.

He wants to speak with us about evacuating the building in the event of a fire.

I went round and asked my neighbours if they had received this letter. Nope!

This is a long (very!) but interesting read about Grenfell, which presents things in a slightly different light.

(Warning, you will need tissues for part 1)

www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n11/andrew-ohagan/the-tower

O Hagen was one of those casting aspersions on the guy who lived in Flat 16.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/08/fake-news-grenfell-fire-andrew-ohagan?CMP=share_btn_tw

"Luke Barratt of Inside Housing has pointed to inaccuracies in O’Hagan’s account of the role played by fire risk assessor Carl Stokes, while Melanie Coles, a nursery worker interviewed for the article, has complained that she was misquoted and misinformed as to the nature of the project. Video footage of her has been removed from the LRB’s website. At the inquiry this week, the barrister representing Behailu Kebede, in whose flat the fire began, attacked O’Hagan’s article for repeating what he said were lies (the online version of the piece has since been amended, though not footnoted)"

"When tackling a subject so upsetting to so many people, and having decided to publish at such a sensitive time just as the commemorations at the inquiry were concluding and in the lead-up to the first anniversary, any mistakes or intrusions are serious. But the bigger problem is O’Hagan’s whole thrust, the main argument of the piece: a defence of Kensington and Chelsea council in the face of what he calls “the narrative” of Tory malice and incompetence being pushed by everyone else – news organisations, central government, local Labour councillors and Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad. In one extraordinary passage, O’Hagan writes: “In every situation pertaining to a public event, people, often with the best intentions, tell lies. They want the story to be the story they want it to be, and no group is more typical of that tendency than reporters.”

Even worse than his false assertion that reporters are liars is the role he assigns to local activists including the Grenfell Action Group, which issued repeated warnings about fire safety in the building, and Grenfell United, the residents’ association set up in the weeks following the fire to act as a voice for the survivors and bereaved.

Last month, following a campaign by Grenfell United, Theresa May agreed to appoint additional panel members to sit alongside Moore-Bick in the public inquiry’s second stage. As committee member Karim Mussilhy wrote in the Guardian last week, the activists felt they were doing the inquiry a favour by helping to restore confidence in it. Next they want the government to commit to carrying out the inquiry’s recommendations. But O’Hagan, despite his own belief that the inquiry “would be a whitewash”, does not even mention this, and the group is contemptuously dismissed, along with the Action Group bloggers, as hate-filled and secretive. Perhaps they are being punished for refusing him the access-all-areas pass he desired"

The story is not sorted. It has hardly begun to be written. The news is not fiction, and this week is filled with reports of the opening statements at the public inquiry. The media must and should be held up to scrutiny. We wield real power, which different organisations exercise to different ends. But O’Hagan’s “world of perpetual commentary, in which everyone is allowed their own facts” is a dangerous fantasy. This is not Britain in 2018.

Literary nonfiction, blending reporting with memoir and information gleaned from other sources, is a form in which many good books have been written. But my sense is that the LRB has overstepped the mark by choosing to publish this now. O’Hagan has taken the wildest, angriest outbursts, the shouts of “murderers!” made on a few occasions at councillors in the street, and spent a year making the case that they were unfair. In seeking to demolish one narrative, and exonerate one set of “conveniently posh” villains, he has created a gallery of new ones — among them some of the disaster’s victims.

Writers and magazines should be encouraged to take risks and the story of Grenfell deserves all our attention. What a shame that the LRB’s one-man inquiry is an ill-judged mess"

Channel 4 news NOW Theyve got hold of emails from @RBKC from the time of the fire.

www.channel4.com/news/revealed-internal-emails-show-council-chaos-in-the-wake-of-grenfell-disaster

I'm just disgusted at how slow people seem to be moving sorting this out. AND then turning a blind eye to future problems with similar buildings.

It's times like this when the phrase "history is doomed to repeat itself" is most apt.

Those poor people. Having their lives devastated first by the fire and now by the long drawn out procedures.

I'm also disgusted at how many have tried to claim compensation and were found lying about being there in the first place

I'm not happy with the way the Fire Service are being treated either Helena. The Stay Put Policy works in a building with adequate fire containment. Grenfell Tower was an absolute disaster waiting to happen in terms of the cladding, obviously, and lack of adequate signage, properly fitting fire doors etc and poor management of such a huge block.

I mentioned it at the time of one of the threads but I was also disgusted by the complete lack of emergency response by the council at the time. Absolutely disgusting. They should have had a civil emergency plan in place.

I'm not happy about the way those residents were treated and the disgusting things that some people said about them.
Social housing or not those people burned alive and their grieving relatives do not need to hear or read some of the terrible things that have been said or written.

Tenants NEED to be listened to when they raise concerns about poor/dangerous workmanship during refurbs But they arent. They are ignored and bullied to keep quiet.

This attitude is countrywide.

its not right to scapegoat the fire service when these things can be prevented in the first place by simply fucking listening to tenants.

Once the fire had spread to other floors, they should have planned for an evacuation. That's the fault of the senior officers not the crew on the ground. However this must not distract attention from the cause of the blaze spreading - the combustible cladding. This was unprecedented territory for the fire service due to the cladding.

Heman it's appalling and incomprehensible. My df worked in a local authority and I remember a couple of emergency situations where it was all hands on deck. My df was very high up but he was on scene making sure things were being done properly to help those affected, even when he was supposed to be on holiday. Sorry to be vague about the situations, I'm trying not to be too identifying. When I was watching the news on the morning after the fire, I just assumed some emergency team would be there from the council. I can't get my head round the fact that there wasn't.
FWIW my df calls the Grenfell TMO 'a shower of incompetent bastards' and lays the blame squarely at their feet.

I could not agree more, the incompetence of our public resources is just staggering. I know the fire service personnel all did their individual best, but as a collective organisation, I just cannot fathom how badly this was managed. On the videos played in court, spectators could repeatedly be heard, exclaiming how quick it was spreading. Not even 20 minutes after the 1st 999 call, people could be heard commenting on the ground, that it was spreading upwards. It was reaching the top. So all these people standing around, were able to deduce what was happening, yet the fire service took over 2 hours to tell people to leave the building?? It’s beyond staggering. It’s appalling. I can’t watch it without feeling sick.

Miss Eliza my dad was a builder/site foreman from the 1950s through to the 1990s. He is totally shocked and disgusted at the deregulation now.

It seems there had been no planning for what to do in the eventuality that a fire spread. Also given that the variables had changed ie the cladding has been installed, surely the possibility of fire spreading should have been considered and planned for? To repeat a point I made earlier, how quickly and safely can you even evacuate a high storey building?