Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

[Zaune]

Well, Mrs May just had to leg it from an angry mob.

Starglider, if you're reading this I strongly suggest you and your family take a spontaneous short break somewhere well outside the M25. I have a feeling this is going to be a disagreeably eventful weekend for London.

[Simon_Jester]

To be honest, it was kind of a rhetorical question - I know how it is allowed.

But, still, how the fuck IS this allowed? How have we, as a society, got ourselves into a situation where a human being has made a decision to wrap a residential tower block in a flammable material to save £5k. I've no doubt whoever made that decision is feeling like the biggest cunt who has ever lived - but we got to a mindset where NO ONE IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND QUESTIONED THIS. That a decision like this was deemed to be an acceptable one. Something has to change after this - it really has to.

You can make a case, given the overall history of construction and building and corruption, that the situation where people will wrap a residential tower block in flammable cladding to save five thousand pounds is NORMAL. You have to specifically regulate people to have even a chance of stopping them from behaving this way, then you have to inspect them for compliance and even then there's a risk something will sneak through.

People cut corners. People are famously bad at accurately weighing the importance of low-probability risks with huge negative consequences. Sometimes we overreact and invest billions to stop a 'threat' that is far less dangerous than other dangers we experience regularly. Sometimes we underreact and think "one in a thousand chance of everyone dying in a fire, eh, there's a 999 in 1000 chance it'll never happen, so effectively it's me getting a free five thousand pounds!"

The problem being of course that if you add this up over a thousand buildings... death by fire happens. Every person makes what seems like a profitable decision for them, collective disaster results.

I totally agree with you that something has to change, but the entire process of modern civilization emerging from the general filthiness and 'nasty, brutish, short' character of premodern life has been the process of changing that 'something.'

[Minischoles]

On what level did wrapping a tower block in fossil fuel seem like a good idea?

Some people really, really want to save money... The burnable cladding is cheaper than the fire resistant cladding.

How is this even allowed

Budget cuts, reduction in inspections, alternations in code/laws to stop "hindering" business interests...

There is some question of just who decided to use the burnable cladding - when my contractor buddy heard about this he commented that he had received a notice within the past year that certain brands/types of cladding would need to be sampled and analyzed due to substitution/mislabeling of materials.

So...

- What this decision made by someone who doesn't understand construction or terminology or whatever mis-reading or not understanding material specs, basically saying "let's go with the cheaper option"?
- Was this decision made by someone who DID understand such things but was such an amoral greedy fuck he/she went ahead and wrapped a residential block in something so burnable?
- Was the proper material ordered, but did the manufacturer fuck up, or cheat?

I read something I have not been able confirm about the materials in question being a choice with a [brandname] PE or [brandname] FR - the "PE" being "polyethylene" and the "FR" being "fire resistant" which are abbreviations I've seen on this side of the pond, presumably they are not unknown in the UK. Which means, if this is true (and I have not confirmed this) the decision was either made by an ignorant/stupid person unfamiliar with the terms, unable to figure it out, and uncurious enough not to ask questions, or else if the person did know what those initials meat was a greedy sociopathic fuck.

To be honest, it was kind of a rhetorical question - I know how it is allowed.

But, still, how the fuck IS this allowed? How have we, as a society, got ourselves into a situation where a human being has made a decision to wrap a residential tower block in a flammable material to save £5k. I've no doubt whoever made that decision is feeling like the biggest cunt who has ever lived - but we got to a mindset where NO ONE IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND QUESTIONED THIS. That a decision like this was deemed to be an acceptable one. Something has to change after this - it really has to.

Because the councils in London do not want social tenants in their boroughs and have spent years under Tory government trying to cleanse their areas.

They don't want to spend money on refurbishing a tower block, whose mere existence, is costing them hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds in potential revenue. They don't want to invest in them, they want them gone and out.

I really wish I was being hyperbolic, but already Kensington council are stating they'll be resettling the survivors in other boroughs around London (despite a promise by the new housing minister that they'd be rehoused locally). So not only have they lost everything, including close family and friends, they're now going to be housed in a completely different area.

I guarantee that unless something drastic is done as a result of an inquest or inquiry, that this tower will never be rebuilt and neither will social housing on the lot; that tower will be torn down and it'll be turned into luxury flats and homes that can be flogged off for millions to some foreign investor to sit empty.

[Broomstick]

But, still, how the fuck IS this allowed? How have we, as a society, got ourselves into a situation where a human being has made a decision to wrap a residential tower block in a flammable material to save £5k. I've no doubt whoever made that decision is feeling like the biggest cunt who has ever lived - but we got to a mindset where NO ONE IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND QUESTIONED THIS. That a decision like this was deemed to be an acceptable one. Something has to change after this - it really has to.

We live in an era where government regulation and the enforcement of same is being dismantled with the excuse it's bad for business and the economy. This is the result. There is a reason we have governments, regulations, and oversight and I guess we as a society need to learn the reasons all over again.

(Of course, some of us never forget the reasons, but too many others have.)

[Dartzap]

Kensington council has been found to be wanting when it comes to crisis managment. This is from the Graun liveblog.

Kensington and Chelsea council has been relieved of responsibility for taking care of the survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The work is being handed over to a new Grenfell Fire Response Team, made up of representatives from central government, the British Red Cross, the Metropolitan police, London-wide local and regional government and the London Fire Brigade.

It is embarrassing for the council, the wealthiest in the country, to have had to cede control.

Eleanor Kelly, chief executive of Southwark Council :

We want to make clear that whilst the emergency and local community response was nothing short of heroic, we know that the initial response was simply not good enough on the ground. People are angry, and rightfully so.Our focus is now ensuring those affected are being cared for and looked after.

The team is to provide 24-hour access to services and support at the Westway Sport and Fitness Centre. Help is to be provided for housing, funds, health, social care, food and advice.

Kelly said:

Housing is our main priority. We will organise and speed up the rehousing process. We are currently working with those affected households to establish what their housing need is – as you can appreciate this takes time. By the end of Monday, 19 June, we aim to have contacted all known families affected by the fire and completed an assessment of what they need. The latest information we have is that 201 households have received emergency accommodation to date, of which 113 are homeless.

The British Red Cross, who have been involved since Wednesday, has a team of more than 60 volunteers to provide help. They will help distribute donations and meet grieving relatives as they arrive at airports.

Kelly said:

There is nothing we can say that will blunt the feeling of loss and anger. But what I hope the new team and this package of support will start to get those affected by this tragedy the urgent assistance from the authorities they need.

[Zaune]

Well, what did anyone expect from a borough council that close to the weekend anyway?

[Dominus Atheos]

This is probably not a very tactful question to ask so soon after a tragedy, but I'm just curious.

What are the EU building fire safety codes?

Also, was this building built or updated to those codes, and if not why not?

[Zaune]

I suspect we'll only find that out when the public inquiry publishes its final report. The problem with these cladding panels is that they've not been around very long; the rules that do exist have been based mostly on mathematical models and theory, at least for retrofit jobs like Grenfell.

[Dominus Atheos]

I just wanted to know if the "burdensome job-killing regulations" that were supposedly a big reason the UK voted for brexit would have saved lives in this case.

Like I said, not a very nice question.

[Simon_Jester]

It's entirely possible that the UK's own domestic fire code regulations would have prevented this, since it's not clear to me that the tower was in compliance.

Of course, the regulations were not enforced on the building, but then, no laws will work, no matter how strict, if they are not enforced.

[Dartzap]

It was built in the early 1970's, just before we even joined the EEC.

I think it may have been our resident mad Briton who said during his attempts to build a underground lair that there are more building regulations here as opposed to Germany.
Feel free to bore yourself shiteless over the regs

[Lost Soal]

For what its worth, an article in The Sun which I glimpsed at claimed the cladding used was already banned in Britain.

[Darth Tanner]

Philip Hammond has said the same, the cladding was illegal under existing planning regulations. I imagine the contractor, building inspector and the fire official who signed it off are losing their jobs and facing criminal charges as part of the investigation, it will depend if the council knew it was happening if they go down in flames too.

[Zaune]

The Metropolitan Police have released a short video clip taken by one of their forensics team, showing the inside of one of the apartments. It looks like something out of a warzone.

[Lord Revan]

The Metropolitan Police have released a short video clip taken by one of their forensics team, showing the inside of one of the apartments. It looks like something out of a warzone.

seeing how fierce the fire was I'm not all that surpriced about that. This event seems like a total fiasko from start to finish, I just hope something good will come out of this in the end, still it's a shame that people had to die to open some eyes or at least make some politician pretend that they care about their voters.

[LadyTevar]

Definite signs of flashover, which is where all combustible surfaces immediately burst into flame, and possibly flameover, where the toxic gases in a room catch fire. This means very high heat, possibly high enough to cremate bones.

Useful pdf about Fire Progression

[Broomstick]

Video footage of when firefighters first saw Grenfell tower ablaze

It's disturbing to hear professional fire fighters saying things like "how are we gonna do that?", "Oh my god", and "How is that possible?". It just further underscores that is NOT typical of a fire in a high rise these days.

Honestly, my heart was breaking while I watched that. So were the firefighters': "There are kids in there." Yeah, you see that and you know people are dying even as you watch.

[bilateralrope]

I've had a few truthers show up on my Facebook feed trying to exploit this tragedy to remind people that they exist.

[Zaune]

The tower's acquired its own conspiracy theory as well, claiming that everyone in the building died and the government's trying to hush it up.

[Kinyo]

The tower's acquired its own conspiracy theory as well, claiming that everyone in the building died and the government's trying to hush it up.

Maybe that's the real reason for the delayed Queens speech and DUP deal!!!

In all seriousness though this is the government that can't get a deal done within 10 days...

Given that I wouldn't trust them to be able to organise a piss up in a brewery I doubt they could manage a cover-up of any sort *cough*dementia tax u-turn*cough*

[Simon_Jester]

The tower's acquired its own conspiracy theory as well, claiming that everyone in the building died and the government's trying to hush it up.

The correct response:

Disasters almost never kill everybody. The Hindenburg fire didn't kill everybody, for crying out loud! And that was a giant balloon full of hydrogen catching fire and exploding in midair with like 100 people hanging from it in a big basket!

So "no survivors" is just plain improbable.

[Zaune]

These are conspiracy theorists we're talking about. Logic bounces off their deeply-held convictions like small arms fire off the glacis plate of a tank.

[SpottedKitty]

These are conspiracy theorists we're talking about. Logic bounces off their deeply-held convictions like small arms fire off the glacis plate of a tank.

Good point. Do they also claim "fake" on phone video of people escaping, and TV interviews with people who escaped or were rescued by the Fire Brigade, all of which I've seen on the news over the last few days?

Some more news coming out today; tests on other buildings have started, and several are confirmed to have the same sort of cladding as Grenfell did. Also reports of three sets of cladding actually failing combustibility tests.

[Iroscato]

These are conspiracy theorists we're talking about. Logic bounces off their deeply-held convictions like small arms fire off the glacis plate of a tank.

Good point. Do they also claim "fake" on phone video of people escaping, and TV interviews with people who escaped or were rescued by the Fire Brigade, all of which I've seen on the news over the last few days?

You already know the answer to this.

[Zaune]

I haven't heard anyone say that yet, but a lot of people seem convinced the hundred or so survivors who've already been rehomed are the only ones who got out in time and that the real death toll is over four hundred, but the government is trying to hush it up.