I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning there.
Grenfell Tower Fire | 14th June 2017
- Thread starter Cheesy
- Start date
heartbreaking, one women is waiting to hear about her brother , sister in law and their 3 kids 
Justgiving page set up. The woman who set it up is a volunteer at the Rugby Portobello Trust, who are helping look after most of the displaced residents.
Good post.
Of course, the way that modern media makes all these horrible events much more visceral is a real phenomenon. We are safer but the world definitely feels less safe.
I dont know about other people but since the Manchester Bomb , I have taken to reading my phone, has soon as the alarm goes off , I never used to do this, just used to do what I needed and leave for work.
It seems like most days something is happening.
People went on about 2016 but so far 2017 is a fecking nightmare.
It seems like most days something is happening.
People went on about 2016 but so far 2017 is a fecking nightmare.
I always confuse Bevin and Bevan but one of them said it was not just a case of providing council housing but quality council housing. On the topic of gentrification, how is the Nine Elms Project in London going along ?
This is incredibly shocking. Sadly sums up the state of the housing market for a huge portion of people (and even more so in London) who live in barely fit for purpose housing owned by unscrupulous landlords who don't give a feck because they know that another sucker will move in straight away.
I used to live near there in Prestwich and still call it death Valley now.
Agree with the sentiment but it's not quite as straight forward as that.
It's not so much greed. It can be a number of things. contractors will want to save money where they can. They wont necessarily understand the implications of installing something differently or not putting a certain thing in a certain place. So you're relying on someone else to recognise this and tell them accordingly if they go wrong, either a surveyor or the fire brigade...but then you're relying on them to pick these things up which even if they do their jobs properly, they might not every single time. With an old building especially it's very difficult to be sure absolutely everything is in place as it should be.
These things are investigated as well and people are ultimately held accountable...but it takes time to gather evidence and if necessary prosecute the right person, so that part rarely happens quickly. The last major fire in a block of flats was 2009 and it was 2015 I think before they were in a position to hold the correct people accountable.
What can be done quickly is investigating the cause and basics of what went wrong so they're in a position to apply the same assessment to other buildings which might be of similar risk.
I remember reading this article on that image:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/
So basically you are saying we have become snowflakes, which I agree. I cant imagine the difficulties the folks had to endure through the War.
20 people in critical care.
I always was as I did have the 24/7 reporting of these events at home since my old man was one of the guys cutting people out of the wrecked cars on the M62, dragging the bodies from burned out houses just like ours and often cropping up in the background on the evening news on TV when there was a major accident.
![woolworth[bh]05.jpg](https://www.fireflash-delta64.co.uk/woolworth[bh]05.jpg)
If I've got the right image there, that's him at the top of the ladder at Woolworths in '79, we've also got a black and white one almost identical of my grandfather at the top of a ladder against a very similar building in the Picadilly area during the blitz.
Me too. It's a brilliant piece of writing.
I agree that it takes time to get to the root of the more complex and technical issues.
But if these buildings have been highlighted to landlords, local council and government as unsafe and those warnings have been ignored, there is no reason it should take 5/6 years to find those who ignored the warnings responsible.
If legislation requiring high rise residential blocks to have such basic safety measures as fire alarms and sprinkler systems has been presented to government and ignored or rejected, they are as responsible and should be held accountable.
5/6 years gives politicians and bureaucrats way too much time to shift blame, muddy waters and distance themselves from their responsibilities. If horrible events like this are going to happen, at the very least they should serve to ensure changes are made swiftly and without compromise to stop them happening again.
Interesting picture. Crikey, that's definitely not a job I'd fancy doing.I always was as I did have the 24/7 reporting of these events at home since my old man was one of the guys cutting people out of the wrecked cars on the M62, dragging the bodies from burned out houses just like ours and often cropping up in the background on the evening news on TV when there was a major accident.
If I've got the right image there, that's him at the top of the ladder at Woolworths in '79, we've also got a black and white one almost identical of my grandfather at the top of a ladder against a very similar building in the Picadilly area during the blitz.
Wrote a long post, but it's not really important right now
I always was as I did have the 24/7 reporting of these events at home since my old man was one of the guys cutting people out of the wrecked cars on the M62, dragging the bodies from burned out houses just like ours and often cropping up in the background on the evening news on TV when there was a major accident.
If I've got the right image there, that's him at the top of the ladder at Woolworths in '79, we've also got a black and white one almost identical of my grandfather at the top of a ladder against a very similar building in the Picadilly area during the blitz.
How they dont suffer from PTSD I will never understand. I have a lot of time listening to people who had to endure such horrific situations almost daily. It reminds you of the value of having perspectives in life.
And I had my ex-wife, who had broken up with her latest BF and the subsequently claimed that she was suffering from PTSD! (He was apparently self-centred and narcissistic. Men, who knew!) I nearly fell off my chair when a mutual friend told me about her latest affliction!
WOW what a pic, I remember that day, very well my Dad worked in the Hotel opposite and we used to go in there all the time for pic and mix. Many years later I worked in that building has security.I always was as I did have the 24/7 reporting of these events at home since my old man was one of the guys cutting people out of the wrecked cars on the M62, dragging the bodies from burned out houses just like ours and often cropping up in the background on the evening news on TV when there was a major accident.
If I've got the right image there, that's him at the top of the ladder at Woolworths in '79, we've also got a black and white one almost identical of my grandfather at the top of a ladder against a very similar building in the Picadilly area during the blitz.
I don't think I'd fancy climbing that latter without a fire. Fair fecks to those guys.
Me neither, hate ladders. That's one advantage of living in a basement flat I guess. When my dad used to get up a ladder to paint that wood bit just below the roof, my mother was always bricking it.
Yea I've been up ladders to help my old man on their roof a few times and didn't enjoy the experience.
I used to work for Building Control in Scotland. Something like this happening is sickening. They're questioning the cladding for example. So if a Building Warrant Application was made for re-cladding a tower, the Building Control officer would check the specification to make sure that the cladding complied, fire stops were being installed in the correct places etc. Once they were happy with the info. provided they would grant a warrant. That meant that the work could commence on site. When the work was complete the building control officer would then grant a completion certificate if he was satisfied with the work. Before doing so they had to make "reasonable enquiry" this could be a combination of site visits, photographs, certificates etc. The problem is that the Building Control Officer can't reasonably inspect every detail, because they have dozens of jobs to look at. The responsibility is sort of passed to the person applying for Completion - they are saying that it complies with the Warrant when they do that. Its just up to the Building Control Officer to accept that or not. So for fire stops behind the cladding for example. There's no way a Building Control officer would see them all. The site agent/supervisor maybe check a few but again, I can't see him having time to check them all. So who are these important details left to. Maybe a sub-contractor, maybe just the operatives themselves. They're saying the cladding installed complied with fire regs. But how do we know what was used was actually what was specified? What if they specified a suitable material but used something cheaper on site?That might get past the Building Control officer if he just done a visual inspection. Its frightening, it's really sad. Building Control wasn't for me in the end. I was a control freak over it, I couldn't check every screw and nail that was on site but I worried and felt like I wanted to. So, I got out. I'm just thinking out loud here over how on Earth this could happen, because it's horrific. It looks to me like there is not just one thing gone wrong, like 1 fire stop not in position. This looks like a multitude of failings to me. The poor people.
Hear a rumor that some of those being treated in hospital have cyanide poisoning. Probably not surprising given the level of smoke in the building and lost of things produce cyanide when burnt.
How would that happen?
A mum-of-six escaped her burning Grenfell Tower flat with all her children but only had four of them when she reached the bottom of the stairs, a witness claimed.
Seventh floor resident Michael Paramasivan said the woman raced from her home on the 21st floor as flames ripped through the west London tower block just before 1am on Wednesday.
WTH is a women with 6 kids living on the 21st floor, but if thats all there was thats all there was.
Seventh floor resident Michael Paramasivan said the woman raced from her home on the 21st floor as flames ripped through the west London tower block just before 1am on Wednesday.
WTH is a women with 6 kids living on the 21st floor, but if thats all there was thats all there was.
old furniture with foam in , think that produces cyanide when burnt.
Thanks for your insight. Maybe use brackets next time.
Really seems like risk management has gone wrong. I'm guessing that the requirement is multiple safety barriers so there must be multiple failures too.
Yeah or paragraphs! Sorry about that, a train of thought kind of post gone on too long.Thanks for your insight. Maybe use brackets next time.
Really seems like risk management has gone wrong. I'm guessing that the requirement is multiple safety barriers so there must be multiple failures too.
Thanks.
It would have to be over 30 years old, the regulations against polyurethane foam furniture without flame retardants was pushed through in 88 as a result of the number of domestic deaths. My old man was one of those who helped push it through at the time and said it would be used as an excuse to cut fire service numbers by the tories when the death rates dropped.
feck, this is horrific.
A man on Sky News there saying he's still not heard from his family. Horrible.
All sorts of other stuff also releases cyanide when burnt e.g. wool, silk, paper and many plastics.
and tobacco.
Poverty is the answer you're looking for.
Well to a degree yes but one of the main complaints highlighted for example was the instruction to "remain in your flat" if there is a fire elsewhere in the building...this is actually in accordance with Fire Brigade guidelines for these types of buildings. So nothing there has been ignored.
It's complex. You can argue that if people had evacuated, they might have got out. You can also argue that if the building had been functioning in accordance with guidelines, the fire would have spread slowly enough to allow them to be evacuated without endangering themselves by trying to escape through fire or smoke logged corridoors.
Before you can start blaming people for legislation or requirements that are in place being wrong, you have to figure out whether the current legislation and requirements were actually followed in the first place, and if not whether that is to blame for what happened.
At the end of the day it could be a lot of things. You can have correct legislation and guidelines in place, but if someone who lives there decides to wedge a fire door open for example, it makes it pretty irrelevant.
This isn't exactly something that happens every week. It's pretty unprecedented on the scale that seems to have happened here. So there's two stages really. 1) Finding out as quickly as possible how the fire spread so easily, why people weren't protected as they should have been, and whether the same risks apply elsewhere. 2) Then looking at whether anyone should be held accountable, whether the current guidelines are adequate or just weren't followed etc.
does anyone know much about these TMO things?
(Tenancy Management Organisation)
Suspect ours is one (old housing association) but that they keep it quiet
I could not tell how you how cheatingly incompetent they are, bordering on to wholesale crooked at times - they have total disregard for tenants, couldn't give a flying feck, just plough on with whatever they want to do, complaints are filed in the bin usually.
(Tenancy Management Organisation)
Suspect ours is one (old housing association) but that they keep it quiet
I could not tell how you how cheatingly incompetent they are, bordering on to wholesale crooked at times - they have total disregard for tenants, couldn't give a flying feck, just plough on with whatever they want to do, complaints are filed in the bin usually.
Even if it turns out previously proposed legislation wouldn't have stopped this fire it's pretty obvious that the laws and enforcement of laws on rental and social housing is pretty substandard. Part of the reason is that it's just impossible to achieve perfect safety, but there's also a clear conflict of interest when about a third of MPs in the last parliament were landlords.
I think most of us rent, or have rented in the past, and between us we'll have countless complaints.
Well done the landlords / local council. Absolute scumbags.