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

Could the Army not even be called into help and at least make it look like the authorities gave a damn.

Sadiq Khan should be all over this from an organisation perspective.

If the council & neighbouring councils cannot cope, then someone has to put up their hands and say 'we can't cope'.

Pages 91 - 95 of document B of the building regs are what I think they are referring to.

12.5 The external envelope of a building should not provide a medium for fire spread if it is likely to be a risk to health and safety. The use of combustible materials in the cladding system and extensive cavities may present such a risk in tall buildings.

The person who wrote this gave permission for it to be shared:

A source I cannot reveal from the fire services sent me this update:

"Seeing as you're a bit of a voice. Grenfel is gonna be triple figures, though some may just be down as missing/presumed dead due to being incinerated.
15-20 jumped to their death.
Many non residents were in flats breaking Ramadan fast. Some flats had 10-15 people inside. Some HMO's.

Morgue set up inside the building.
While a lot of the delay is due to fears around building stability (internally) and the slowness of cataloging process, there is also a worry about the amount of cameras pointing at the building and how it would look to drag out a load of bodies.

The likelihood of refrigerated lorries showing up in the dead of night is rising
Don't quote me, it's just what I'm hearing through chain of command!

As the media have pretty much nailed, it's down to shit building standards.
Similar to Lakernal house.
We tell people to stay put in high rise because the flats are supposed to be essentially sealed units.
Run a load of flammable cladding up the side and that changes."

15-20 jumped? How horrible. Are the ones who jumped the confirmed dead?

On 'guidance': the law which governs fire safety of buildings is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Unlike say the older UK furniture flammability regs, which are prescriptive, the Fire Safety Order is in keeping with modern laws which tend to be much less prescriptive. They just say, in this case, that a fire risk assessment must be undertaken. It's up to the building owner what he or she then does by way of safety. If you go to DCLG's site you'll find 11 lengthy guidance brochures for this Order. They give advice on what standards you might use for, say, carpets or curtains. But you aren't breaking the law if you don't follow it up. The enforcement authority - the fire services in this case - has to decide whether or not they believe you didn't provide proper fire safety. They'd then need to prove in court that you should have used such and such standard and convince the court they're right. I don't know about cladding but it's possible the building owner will argue that non fire resistant foam is used all over the place, therefore the fire services can't say he wasn't being safe. Expect a lengthy court case.

Just seen a clip of the trouping of the colour. Surely a few hundred of those trained soldiers could be sent to the area. Its about 2 miles away from Horseguards FFS!
Get them out of their dress uniform into their fatigues and march them over, for appearances if nothing else.

I don't now. It is what it is - an unconfirmed quote. But the person it came through is reliable as far as I know.

It certainly sounds plausible though - where are the bodies? Why aren't they bringing them out of the building? Why aren't they speculating about numbers?

It makes me cynical about the reporting of terrorist incidents too - like they play them up because they want us to be outraged, but are playing this down. It'll backfire if they are trying to play it down though - all eyes are on Grenrell now.

On the cladding: if the foam didn't include flame retardant chemicals then it would be highly flammable and burn quickly. But it wouldn't give off hydrogen cyanide. If it did contain flame retardants (which is the only way to make foam fire resistant) then in theory it would have burned less quickly (the FR industry's claims for slowing fire spread are highly challengeable) but would still have burned just like we saw it anyway and released large amounts of cyanide and other toxic fumes. Meaning that if foam cladding is going to be allowed, instead of naturally fire resistant (and more expensive) materials, a debate needs to had about whether or not flame retardant chemicals are safe. And it's recently been proved that where sofas are concerned, flame retardant treated sofas are actually more dangerous than untreated sofas.

I maintain that at least 300 people perished in there.

What do you want soldiers to actually do though?

"I maintain that at least 300 people perished in there."

Where are you getting this figure from?

Quote sounds entirely plausible to me too. We know of at least four or five people seen jumping that have been reported, at least.

I was wondering about the baby who was thrown out - I haven't seen any news or updates about if they are okay? Did I just miss the update?

"15-20 jumped to their death.'

They would have been found immediately - sorry, but the death toll would have been much higher (as they don't have to identify the deceased before including them in the death toll).

Is the makeshift mortuary in the basement?

Have to agree numbers are very low. Keep expecting a dramatic rise. Obviously even one death is not acceptable.

I watched a video on YouTube of a bystander who had a friend in the building. He was communicating friends flat number/floor to firefighters at the foot of the stairs and ended up going up to second floor, filming himself as he went. It was horrific

(Thread is near 1000 again btw)

"BeyondStrongAndStable"

10 month old baby from floor 9/10 is OK and recovering with broken bone(s) and bruising - there was an update yesterday.

Four year old girl was also caught and was unharmed.

They don't need soldiers, and what message would that send?

They need the council to do its job, drafting in support from other local authorities if needed.

I would not want soldiers at the actual scene.

What should be done is the same as happened in Manchester. Get soldiers in to temporarily police other areas on, so that more police officers are available to investigate the crime and to assist those looking for missing people and coordinate information on who is missing.

Holy shit sleeping, that's chilling.

Just based on the size of the building.

The small (70 ish) who are in hospital. Eye witnesses didn't see a huge amount 30/40 ish??) escape.

But soldiers aren't trained police. It's a different job. The residents need good communication and to have their housing and basic needs met over the next few weeks before long term solutions are found - that's a council job, not a police one.

I don't know why they don't just come out and say it.

We 'estimate' between 4-600 were in the building

X amount are in Hospital
X amount have been confirmed dead
X amount are missing and are presumed dead.

No one wants to be the one making that announcement but the longer this goes on the more people start to question the numbers and the more it does start to look like a cover up. People aren't stupid.

The boat had been well and truly missed with regard to helping people look for the missing. All the hospital patients have now been identified, so if someone is missing and isn't identified as being in hospital, then sadly the worst has probably happened.

The main help wrt looking for the missing was needed 3 days ago, not now.

Yes, we send the soldiers to other areas as we did in Manchester, so that the police officers from those areas are freed up to deal with Kensington.

In Manchester co-ordination and liaison around deaths and the missing was handled by the police, from a stadium such was the concern for the families.

There were extra police to do this because other places, like London, had the army in so that the police could go and help in Manchester. The army was not in Manchester itself.

The lack of liaison over the missing is a major issue here.

In the Shadow of Grenfell Tower- thread four

New thread as this one is filling up.