Grenfell Tower fire- thread three

[RhythmAndStealth]

Seventeen tragic deaths confirmed so far, six victims provisionally identified.
Number of those who perished feared to rise into triple figures as search proceeds
Search for remaining victims expected to take weeks, sadly it’s considered unlikely that it will be possible to identify all the victims
Names of those still missing start to emerge
Nearly 80 victims being treated across six hospitals, with 15 still in critical care
Hundreds of people displaced and dispossessed, concerned about when and where they will be rehoused

Public inquiry ordered.
Criminal investigation launched.
Serious questions being asked about fire safety regulations, management of social housing, austerity and inequality.
Fire Brigade search of building expected to take weeks due to complexity of building, extent of fire damage and the necessity of undertaking a painstaking fingertip search.

“There must be arrests after this monstrous crime” David Lammy MP

‘Families rehoused last night been left clueless about where to spend next nights. No word from #kccouncil. Chaos.” Emily Maitlis, BBC

“We have to act as if it was our friends, our family in that block” Nick Hurd MP, Policing and Fire Minister

“Someone needs to be held accountable. These deaths could have been prevented.” Local resident to Sadiq Khan

Thread 2
Thread 1

YY Albadross Ive seen instances where HAs refuse to send someone out to a tenant when there is a water leak............because its a weekend.

There was an MNer who was left a whole weekend without any running water.

brexitstolemyfuture:
I have a lot of experience with the UK's Nightwear Regulations. These provide much tougher flammability requirements than the EU. What that means in practice is that you cannot have a child's nightdress made of cotton unless it's treated with flame retardants. In general, other EU countries are more concerned about chemical pollution on our health and environment than fire safety. In Sweden, for instance, they resist flame retardants in products because they know they're bad for the future of the planet and their families.

My sofa is from the 1990s and I live in a big block. Hmm. Not do much worried for me but would hate for my ancient sofa to make a fire worse!

As said, an old sofa will contain less flame retardants than a new one, mainly because much will have worn off. As has been said in the news, normally a fire in a tower block will be contained in the flat concerned. But that cladding meant that fire spread up the outside of the building and then into further apartments.

Just checked the local fb group i left last night. The bloody comments are still on there. Bastards.

how come there is a plan for say a refugee camp or how to evacuate a school.....but absolutely nothing in place for Grenfell

brexit, it will undoubtedly turn into 'pass the buck'. In my earlier list of 'how building regulation works', at each one of those stages there are a number of people / organisations responsible for decision making. And that is before we even get to the contractors responsible it installing the stuff.

On the issue of flame retardants, that is frankly irrelevant in this case. Building design starts with the prospect of a fire developing with fully combustible material and works from there. Nobody worth their weight in salt would suggest that restricting fire loading (ie assuming limited or flame retardant material) within an individual dwelling was a sensible plan.

how come there is a plan for say a refugee camp or how to evacuate a school.....but absolutely nothing in place for Grenfell. The council should have had and implemented a Major Incident plan to cover this. Clearly they didn't and whatever they did do is woefully inadequate.

i bet there are plans in place for all sorts of things

Just saw Emma Dent Coad say on the news that the council aren't returning her calls either!!

I don't understand how it's the community who is providing everything.

Where is the organisation for housing those who have survived but been made homeless?

Am I being naive, or can a hotel be taken over (or part of it) in order to house those who made it out? Why can't they be all together, and then therefore updated together on progress and finding families?

People are all over the place, staying in different places every night. No money, no ID, can't access bank accounts without ID, they have nothing.

They are being told nothing as well:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/15/police-keeping-us-dark-missing-relatives-family-lost-6-month/

Understand this is an awful awful situation, and things take time, but by ignoring people, they are making it worse.

They need to be listened to.

Cannot believe the comments on Twitter about 'no wonder the wealthy hate the poor' in response to the protests.

TM should have immediately apologised for not meeting and promised to then do so, to listen to their questions.

Anger is brewing, and rightly so. Years and years of writing letters and complaining; no wonder they are on the streets.

"On the issue of flame retardants, that is frankly irrelevant in this case."

Not sure what you mean. That tower was full of sofas and mattresses that clearly caught fire. I was making the point tha the flame retardants in them would have killed/incapacitated people more quickly than if they weren't present and if they actually did their job.

I had to turn the Last Leg off How can we have #moreincommon when the elephant in the room is how tenants are treated and they have someone on there who voted against homes being fit for human habitation. Some tweeters are making similar comments.

We don't use contracts for our HA because twice in a year we have different vendors refuse to come out when there was an incident out of hours. The maintenance team includes a qualified plumber, electrician and an apprentice under each of them. There are then two teams so there is back up. OOH issues are called into the central office and in the morning my Dad checks the list to make sure any issue is either resolved or provisions are made.

I don't recall anyone being without running water for more than 36 hours. When that has happened my Dad has called one of the managers to make sure the tenant is ok. There was a family without running water and the single parent had 4 DC. My Dad just booked them into a hotel for the night and gave the mother £100 to buy meals.

Others earlier referring to this about rich vs poor are a little misguided. My family are wealthy and the reason my Dad got involved is because he saw just how badly the council housing was run by the HA. For me this is 100% about right vs wrong. The HAs have been so so greedy.

gluteous the comments i saw on the fb group are similar There were racist comments and classist ones.

But also posts about how its not political and how dare the journos and the public say it is and ended with Shame on you.

How the fuck is the shame with the tenants and the members of the public standing up for them.

I have never seen such mental gymnastics in all my fucking life.

Agree there should have definitely been a plan.

I worked for a London University in the early noughties that suffered a fire. My boss was on the disaster committee.

He was on scene within the hour, phoning round people to tell them not to come to work the next day. I was out nearby. with a group of friends, including work friends as it was my birthday and we went to the scene.

All the University leadership were already there, organising things. To the extent that the exam schedule going barely disrupted, people til graduated in the summer.

They basically halted everything bar essential operations, to focus on responding to the fire. And they were there, they kept people informed of what was going on.

I just cannot comprehend how K&C Council can think it is justifiable to respond to a request for a list of residents with a phrase as callous and dismissive as "That is not a matter for the Council".

Well exactly gluteus. It can be done. For example - and I know this is NO WAY near the scale of this disaster - but a few years ago we had a fire in the loft space in one of our blocks. All elderly tenants. We had to evacuate the whole building of 30 odd flats. Myself and one other colleague got them transported to a local hotel for shelter, food etc. We phoned their NOK and got any urgent medication sorted out within the space of about 3 hours while the fire service got on with their job.

Yes either through choice or shame some people are not accepting the injustice that has contributed to this.

If I was in government the first call I would have made would have been to the Red Cross.

1400 empty houses in Kensiington and Chelsea and now they are saying they may not be able to get them permanent homes until 2019

I mean it is irrelevant. This fire spread, and it wasn't expected to, it simply shouldn't have. That is the issue, and the reasons why will be fully investigated.

When designing buildings, fire strategies and fire risk assessments work on the understanding that nose level (ie breathable) smoke, in any room, means the room should already have been evacuated regardless of whether it is hydrogen cyanide or ordinary (deadly) carbon monoxide.

Flame retardants are designed to prevent small fires. Cigarette burns turning in to actual fires, for instance. But nobody of any competency would design a building on the basis that no significant fire would ever happen.

yes evacuating a care home....good example of plan in place.this is a shambles

The response from the council and the HA has been awful. For all of our tenants we keep an electronic file with ICE details. It's in an excel sheet so I can set up a robocall. We ask for it to be updated once a year. We have a disaster plan but it doesn't extend to rehoming everyone because, unless we go out and buy additional housing, there is no excess capacity. The council would have to step in.

Same here Want. We can provide the emergency services with lists of all tenants who should be in our blocks, obviously not visitors etc, within minutes. This situation is just appalling.

Sorry, I should have said this fire shouldn't have spread before all residents were able to escape. Obviously we can't fully ensure fire will never spread.