Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Simon_Jester »

Zaune wrote: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.
You're not arguing with the conspiracy theorists. You're using their lunacy for target practice for the entertainment and edification of bystanders.

Under any circumstances where "using their lunacy for target practice for the bystanders" is NOT a good description of your interactions with a conspiracy theorist... Yeah, you're better off not interacting with them unless it's some kind of intervention with a conspiracy theorist you care about personally and are trying to deprogram.
Zaune wrote: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.
This is, at least, significantly less stupid than claiming that nobody made it out alive.

This is only as stupid as the belief that the British government could successfully rehouse 100% of a large group of people in a week or less. Which is quite stupid, but not completely in defiance with all basic logic and experience. Only most of basic logic and experience.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by SpottedKitty »

Simon_Jester wrote:This is only as stupid as the belief that the British government could successfully rehouse 100% of a large group of people in a week or less. Which is quite stupid, but not completely in defiance with all basic logic and experience. Only most of basic logic and experience.
And guess what, that "large group of people" just got even bigger — latest news is there's been a slightly chaotic evacuation of five similar tower blocks in north London "just in case" after tests on the cladding. That's 800 more flats — not just 800 people — and the local council's trying to put them all up in hotels. Tonight. :roll:

Here's the BBC report.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Zaune »

If this mess hadn't already transitioned from failure to fiasco, it certainly has now.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Isolder74 »

SpottedKitty wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:This is only as stupid as the belief that the British government could successfully rehouse 100% of a large group of people in a week or less. Which is quite stupid, but not completely in defiance with all basic logic and experience. Only most of basic logic and experience.
And guess what, that "large group of people" just got even bigger — latest news is there's been a slightly chaotic evacuation of five similar tower blocks in north London "just in case" after tests on the cladding. That's 800 more flats — not just 800 people — and the local council's trying to put them all up in hotels. Tonight. :roll:

Here's the BBC report.
I didn't think my question from before would be answered so quickly. So it's confirmed that 5 more death traps have already located. Now it just comes to how many more of these are still waiting to be identified. I think calling this a fiasco is putting it lightly. What's worse is trying to locate terminate residences for all of these people.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

Is it to the realm of "clusterfuck" or has it gone beyond that? Is it now in the realm of being FUBAR?
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Isolder74 »

I think it's definitely FUBAR.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Lord Revan »

Broomstick wrote:*snipped link*

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.
Yeah it does put perspective on how big of tragic series of inexcuseble mistakes this whole thing has been when people whose job is to put out fires and as a result have seen some really nasty fires in their careers (and probably read about even more) have a hard time beliving what they're seeing is the real thing.

honestly I don't envy the job they had to do at all nor do I envy the job of inspectors who have to go thru the burnt out ruin to find out any possible corpses for the families to bury (since there's pretty much 0% chance of finding any more survivors).
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Lord Revan »

Isolder74 wrote:I think it's definitely FUBAR.
I think we're past FUBAR at this point into a screw-up so bad that we still don't got a term for it.

Still the fact that evacuating buildings with the same cladding seem like a good sign, it seems to show that people in charge of things are taking this seriously, sadly that came too late for the dead and their families.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by fordlltwm »

From what I read in the papers the other day Camden Council where spitting feathers that the stuff had been fitted rather than what was originally specified.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by bilateralrope »

fordlltwm wrote:From what I read in the papers the other day Camden Council where spitting feathers that the stuff had been fitted rather than what was originally specified.
Here's hoping that there are records of exactly what cladding they specified.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Isolder74 »

bilateralrope wrote:
fordlltwm wrote:From what I read in the papers the other day Camden Council where spitting feathers that the stuff had been fitted rather than what was originally specified.
Here's hoping that there are records of exactly what cladding they specified.
This story is becoming right out of the movie, The Towering Inferno. That stuff isn't suppose to happen in real life!
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Soontir C'boath »

Isolder74 wrote:I didn't think my question from before would be answered so quickly. So it's confirmed that 5 more death traps have already located. Now it just comes to how many more of these are still waiting to be identified. I think calling this a fiasco is putting it lightly. What's worse is trying to locate terminate residences for all of these people.
I'm sure you meant permanent, but that word choice certainly seems to have applied already...

Just wanted to tip toe in here on that. Do anything to paint a facade, but leave the rest alone.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Isolder74 »

I was trying to type permanent but I think autocorrect has a sick sense of humor.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Alkaloid »

So 60 buildings have been found to have cladding that doesn't meet fire safety stadards. Or, more accurately, all buildings tested so far have been found to have cladding that doesnt meet fire safety standards. All hail deregulation!

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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Isolder74 »

One of the plot point of the Movie The Towering Inferno was that the architect designed the building specifying the proper fire safety like fire doors and wiring that was meant to handle the max loads the building could run on and then the contractor used cheaper materials and aluminum wiring because it would save him money he then pocketed while still charging the cost if he had used the right stuff.

I'm not sure where this mess fits in that type of malicious oversight.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by bilateralrope »

That's why I'm hoping records of exactly what was ordered are still around. Those records would prove who decided to use the substandard materials.
Alkaloid wrote:So 60 buildings have been found to have cladding that doesn't meet fire safety stadards. Or, more accurately, all buildings tested so far have been found to have cladding that doesnt meet fire safety standards. All hail deregulation!

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Three questions:

- How quickly can the cladding be removed ?

- Will the buildings be uglier after removing the cladding than they were before the cladding was installed ?

- How easily could a terrorist ignite the cladding on those buildings ?
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Sea Skimmer »

As far as how quick, depends how much money you want to spend to rush it, and how it was installed. At Grenfell tenet complaints, from before the fire, indicated the the cladding was being attached with wood, which would mean a retrofit would have to start from scratch, after demo. If the hangers are sound and firestopped then probably 6-8 week kind of job to replace just the hung panels. I dunno if you can get this kind of material in bulk off the shelf though, or if its all built to order. It seems to be pretty damn standard so at least some should be off the shelf.

Anyway, its internal problems, as have now been found on the four other towers the Grenfell contractor worked on, and which have been evacuated, that are the big trouble. They could take months and months to deal with if FUBAR enough, if say whole wiring runs must be replaced, and require ripping apart peoples actual apartments.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Lord Revan »

Wikipedia is calling this the deadliest fire in the UK since World War II, so if that's true then I suspect there's an incentive for the authorities to give the impression they're doing as much as possible to prevent another similar disaster as there will be a lot of angry people and not all of them poor and uneducated.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Zaune »

Apologies for posting an embedded screenshot of uncertain provenance, but if this isn't a hoax it's big news indeed:

Image
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Crazedwraith »

The BBC is running a similar story.
The BBC wrote: Grenfell Tower: Corporate manslaughter considered by police
Police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire say they have "reasonable grounds" to suspect that corporate manslaughter offences may have been committed.

It means senior executives from the council and the tenant management organisation that ran the block are likely to be interviewed under caution.

A letter from the Met Police to residents said officers had "seized a huge amount of material".

At least 80 people died in the fire in North Kensington on 14 June.

The relevant section of the letter says Met Police officers have "seized a huge amount of material and taken a large number of witness statements".

"After an initial assessment of that information, the officer leading the investigation has today notified the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenancy Management Organisation that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that each organisation may have committed the offence of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007," it added.

Evidence gathering

The Met Police also released a statement on Thursday, stating that its investigation into the cause and spread of the fire was a "complex and far reaching investigation that by its very nature will take a considerable time to complete".

BBC home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds says the Met Police has briefed a number of times that corporate manslaughter is a possible offence being considered as part of its investigation, along with breaches of health and safety laws.

In the case of corporate manslaughter, this is an offence which can only be committed by a corporation - not an individual, therefore no-one can be arrested in this instance.

The effect of what the police have said is to put both organisations on notice that their senior executives are likely to be questioned under caution in relation to the fire. This means that evidence can be used against both bodies in a court, our correspondent added.

The local authority has been accused of being slow to react to the disaster on the ground and not doing enough to re-house residents of Grenfell Tower.

Council leader Nicholas Paget-Brown and his deputy Rock Feilding-Mellen resigned following continued criticism of its response to the tragedy.

Robert Black, chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, also stepped down to "concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry".

Newly elected council leader Elizabeth Campbell was booed and heckled at a public meeting earlier this month, which was attended by about 70 of the 255 people who survived the blaze.

Responding to the Met Police letter, she said residents "deserve answers" about the blaze and the "police investigation will provide these".

"We fully support the Metropolitan Police investigation and we will co-operate in every way we can," Ms Campbell added.

"It would not be appropriate to comment further on matters subject to the police investigation."

Fire safety concerns

The news comes after site manager at the tower block, Michael Lockwood, told a public meeting on Wednesday that the building would be covered in August.

He said that he expected the demolition of the tower block would begin "towards the end of 2018".

Some possessions could be retrieved from 33 of the block's flats, he added.

The residents of Grenfell Tower had reportedly raised fire safety concerns for several years before the blaze, according to a community action group.

A Newsnight investigation has shown that an official test of the types of materials used at Grenfell Tower suggest that designs such as that used in the tower's cladding are fundamentally flawed.

Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a public inquiry into the tower fire, which will be lead by retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick.

He told survivors at a meeting on Tuesday he would "get to the bottom" of the tragedy but insisted he had "no power" to make arrests over the blaze.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Ralin »

So it says that individuals can't be arrested for Corporate Manslaughter since that only applies to corporations. How if at all does that interact with pressing charges against individuals who installed/approved installing dangerous or substandard materials that caused the fire or made it worse?
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Zaune »

Ralin wrote: 2017-07-27 10:56pmSo it says that individuals can't be arrested for Corporate Manslaughter since that only applies to corporations. How if at all does that interact with pressing charges against individuals who installed/approved installing dangerous or substandard materials that caused the fire or made it worse?
That will ultimately be down to the Crown Prosecution Service, but there's nothing to stop the police applying to have charges brought against individual employees as well if there's evidence that they were directly culpable.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Simon_Jester »

Corporations are, as economic structures, very well designed to enable the "hive mind" that is the corporation as a whole to make evil decisions for profit. By hiring and promoting manipulative psychopaths, by constantly exposing individual employees to intense pressure to get 'results' according to the corporations' standards, and isolating them from the support of others who will help them remember their ethics and not just the fear of losing their jobs, you can create a situation where the group as a whole will do many things that almost no individual member of the group would agree to.

I'm actually MORE interested in creating heavy penalties for 'corporate manslaughter' than I am in prosecuting the individual employees. Because the people who are truly responsible for the decision to skimp on materials almost certainly have enough paperwork and lawyers to create doubt, and to shovel the blame downhill onto the subordinates they pressured into doing it.

If you can't punish the CEOs and have to settle for punishing flunkies, hitting the entire corporation in the pocketbook starts to look like an appealing "third option," because it at least hits the CEOs in a place where it hurts.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Ralin »

Simon_Jester wrote: 2017-07-28 06:24amIf you can't punish the CEOs and have to settle for punishing flunkies, hitting the entire corporation in the pocketbook starts to look like an appealing "third option," because it at least hits the CEOs in a place where it hurts.
That seems like a very questionable argument. CEOs are infamous for driving their companies into the ground and then leaving with severance packages large enough that it doesn't meaningfully impact their personal wealth and lifestyle either way.
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Re: Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

Post by Simon_Jester »

Corporate leaders aren't random wandering monsters that act destructively without purpose; they do have an incentive structure. Suffice to say that CEOs do at least have a recognizable incentive not to crash their corporations. And there are reasonably competent lawyers and financial planners that try to bind corporate executives to actions that are good for the company. Yes, if the contract is poorly written, the CEO's severance package may leave them better off than their stewardship would justify- but that's far from the universal experience.

By contrast, they have relatively little incentive to avoid having deniable lackeys getting sent to jail, given confidence that they can avoid prison themselves (which, experience shows, they totally can).
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