Grenfell Tower tragedy continued

[RhythmAndStealth]

Twelve people confirmed dead with that number expected to rise significantly.

Many others injured and distressed. People have lost relatives, friends and their homes.

250 firefighters in attendance, risking their lives in an unprecented fire and it's aftermath. Other emergency services and NHS staff working hard to help survivors.

Many questions to be answered.

to all those affected and everyone helping.

Did you see that the four senior people running kctmo were Paid £650000 between them last year? This is a company set up to manage the entire council housing stock in the borough. How can this be that people are earning these sums for overseeing the running of social housing? Corruption and greed and this should also be investigated as part of the public enquiry. The can has been opened on this shower of shites but what a price these poor people have ultimately paid.

MrsGlow

Personally I don't think those salaries are huge by the standards of certain other London jobs.

We do not know yet what happened. Speculation is useless.

Anger and recrimination will come later when we know the truth.

Regardless of all the inquiries and investigations that need to be done why can't a law be passed immediately that all high rise flats have sprinkler systems retrofitted?

There was a comment by a London firefighter on Reddit (he wasn't involved directly in this disaster) that even when a person is clearly dead they still need to be certified by a doctor as being dead.

So I agree it is likely that the 17 are people who have been found outside or in stairwells or possibly less damaged flats. They are not letting anyone more than is necessary into the actual flats yet and they will need to move bodies extremely carefully and note accurately where exactly they were (for investigation purposes) before they can be examined by doctors and declared dead even when it's completely impossible that they would still be alive. Also taking into account the state of the flats themselves with all the debris etc, the fact that numbers aren't known and there are likely to be a fair amount of young children, it's probably going to be quite hard to find and identify people - and I don't mean work out who a person was, but simply to identify bodies out of general debris. Then lastly most of the upper floors are not yet safe to enter and will need to be secured before fire officers or anyone else can even go in there.

But - again - unofficial reports and from photos etc - it seems that a lot of bodies have been recovered so far :( I think the death toll will continue to rise today but it might even be weeks until we get accurate numbers and almost certainly days and/or weeks until people are named.

Again, how could he possibly have alerted all of those on higher floors?

No one has suggested that and to be honest I think you're understandable emotions about this horror are getting in the way of you being rational.

His neighbour has said he only alerted her after he'd packed a bag. She's said he even stood around videoing the fire in his flat. The point she's making is that he could have alerted people on his floor much sooner and that could have had a knock on effect to others, including the emergency services, being alerted sooner.

Personally I'm not surprised people tried to take their belongings with them. They probably didn't have much to begin with, but my children are flight deck crew and cabin crew and they speak of what they're told to expect if they have to evacuate an aircraft - people taking their belongings with them when they are repeatedly told not to.

I think it's human nature - unfortunately.

Soda, my point is 'social housing'. It is not ethical in my eye that this sector is in the business to make a few people extremely wealthy. Greed before safety of residents. I'm not speculating. The entire system needs to be included in the public enquiry.

Agree wholeheartedly, the 1 hour flat fire containment, and the subsequent floor containment, failed. Its that fundamental premise, that all other procedures are reliant on.

Also, I would just add, fire safety and cladding is not suddenly a new issue. BREEAM, fire safety regs, and indeed eu regs, all address this.

http://www.redbooklive.com/filelibrary/Articles/Thedangerssofexternallcladdingfiressinmulti-storeyybuildings~~_RCI.pdf

The question of why this went wrong needs to be answered, but I for one, would certainly be evacuating any properties known to have used this particular cladding, today. Now.

It has failed on so many levels, the why needs to be answered, but the fact that it has, musnt be ignored. There is enough evidence showing the external building burning at high speed, to take action today, on the material used. Clearly other factors may be contributory, but on this one issue, waiting for an enquiry is unacceptable.

I err, for now, on the side that the contractors may have fitted in good faith, but who manufactured and passed the materials through all the regulation we have in place?

It failed, and the now ongoing risk to other residents from either accidental or intentional fire, is too high for councils or even posters here, to play politics.

Heartbreaking to think of little kids. You can only imagine what their poor mothers were doing to try to reassure the little mites.

I agree that the death toll is from people immediately recovered. I've noticed the number in critical care has reduced. I would like to think they have moved to normal care, but it's possible some have passed away.

TWO OF THE THREE GIRLS FROM 20TH FLOOR ARE ALIVE.

They are in hospital receiving treatment; parents and baby sister have still not been accounted for.

Also, does anyone know if there is a "safe" list yet of people who did manage to get out and stay last night at friend's or in shelters?

Photos on the BBC from inside one of the flats. Not sure which floor. Flat gutted but in the Kitchen you can clearly see the remains of washing machines and other appliances.

Coral where are you getting that information from? That would be a miracle.

Removing dangerous cladding, installing sprinkers & alarms, etc will all take time - months and years rather than days.

In the immediate short term, things CAN be done today:-

Evacuation procedures can be reviewed especially in "at risk" buildings. Easy enough to change the guidance to "get the hell out" rather than wait in your flat.

Pre-determined attendance (number and type of fire engine) can be increased today, so that more equipment and fire fighters get there sooner. (Govt targets just concentrate on first and second attendance response times, so obviously fire departments concentrate on making sure the first two get there quickly, but in cases like this, it just wasn't enough).

Access roads can be policed properly to stop illegal parking and delivery/trades vans from blocking emergency access routes.

Fire doors and exit routes can have any damages/blockages removed.

Dry and wet risers, alarm systems, maintenance systems, etc can all be checked.

None of this takes a lot of time nor money - like i say, it can be done now, today, etc.

Just been reported - their families have just found them in the last few hours it would seem.

metro.co.uk/2017/06/15/two-girls-reported-missing-found-alive-from-near-top-of-grenfell-tower-fire-6710228/

People don't act in logical ways when in immediate danger. Also, people don't understand why the advice is not to take things with you. It's never really explained (I remember my school friends and I insisting that we would definitely take our coats/bags) and I think many people would think well, I can carry this, it's not slowing me down, what's the harm? The harm is that hundreds of people all trying to evacuate at once is an extremely stressful situation and adding bulk is going to reduce the space available which will impede yours' and others' exit. And if you decide that the bag is weighing you down and drop it part way through leaving, then it's a trip hazard or something other people have to walk around, probably in poor visibility, which creates a more dangerous situation.

None of that is particularly obvious when you're standing or sitting in a room which at the moment isn't filling with smoke or the smoke/fire is some distance from you, it would only become obvious once you were already on the crowded stairwell in the panic, and then it's too late. It's difficult to believe that your life is really in danger until it's imminent, and until that point humans will prioritise strange things because we don't always think logically, much as we'd like to assume that we do. That is why we need to practise fire drills so that our automatic response in a disaster doesn't fall to these faulty instincts.

Increasing the number of fire crews arriving would take a lot of money, and would reduce the number of fire fighters available to do things like inspections of housing, which prevent fires.

It will take time and money to train all the extra fire fighters required to improve the service.

Agree Badbadbunny some swift action is needed and access is a major issue

@CaveMum good analogy with the Titanic and the chain of events ending in a catastrophe

When we look at fatal accidents in my sport it is always a chain of seemingly small circumstances that results in a death, hardly ever one big thing out of nowhere.

Well maybe some of the 500 firefighters who lost their jobs in London in the last few years would like to return Sylvia.

That would cut down on the time aspect. And I don't think "it would cost money" is a particularly compelling or appropriate argument at the moment.

It is going to cost money to deal with this- to get justice for the dead, support the survivors and protect others from meeting a similar fate.

And more firefighters overall would mean more crews to attend incidents AND more people to make fire prevention visits.

I'm not arguing against spending money. I'm simply responding to a post that says it wouldn't cost money.

@CoralDreamscapes

my god I hope the fire stopping was put back adequately. If that wasn't then how can this be anything other than corporate manslaughter?

Is there even any way of checking that now?

Yes, indeed, there should be more fire fighters for both.

But if you don't factor in the time and money required to deal with those things, then one area ends up getting skimped on to increase service in another.

BangkokBlues I am not sure if they would be able to tell that now. Maybe they could look at intact parts of the building (the lower levels) to see if it was replaced, but that wouldn't necessarily mean it was replaced throughout the entire building.