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Post by stefy69 on Jun 14, 2017 6:12:01 GMT
Just been reading and watching on the BBC website the terrible scene at the tower block in Kensington that has been alight most of the night.
I pray that everyone in there has managed to get to safety.
More sobering news I'm afraid. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 6:21:15 GMT
Goodness me, how awful. There have been campaigns to get something done about the fire safety of this building since 2013: grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/Thoughts with everyone affected. Please can our country not have any more tragedies. |
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Post by hulmeman on Jun 14, 2017 6:25:00 GMT
Whilst hoping for everybody's safety, I hope none of our gang are affected.
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Post by infofreako on Jun 14, 2017 7:29:22 GMT
Looks awful, confirmed fatalities but not how many as yet
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 8:14:14 GMT
Disturbingly, there are reports that fire alarms didn't go off.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 8:16:47 GMT
This got to me more than the terrorist attacks for some reason-I think just the sense of even more helplessness that goes with such a disaster in your own home. Terrible and frightening.
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Post by viserys on Jun 14, 2017 8:37:18 GMT
This got to me more than the terrorist attacks for some reason-I think just the sense of even more helplessness that goes with such a disaster in your own home. Terrible and frightening. To some extent, yes. It's scary to think that your own home and "cocoon" becomes a death trap. On the other hand it reinforces my belief that you can't hide from all the calamities in the world, including terrorism, in your safety bubble-home. Terrible things can always happen everywhere, so no point in staying at home, too afraid to venture out. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 8:43:19 GMT
This got to me more than the terrorist attacks for some reason-I think just the sense of even more helplessness that goes with such a disaster in your own home. Terrible and frightening. To some extent, yes. It's scary to think that your own home and "cocoon" becomes a death trap. On the other hand it reinforces my belief that you can't hide from all the calamities in the world, including terrorism, in your safety bubble-home. Terrible things can always happen everywhere, so no point in staying at home, too afraid to venture out. Oh I'm defiantly of the opinion you can't hide from the world, and it's never once occurred to me to stop doing anything because the world outside is 'scary'
I think for me is that general idea of the place you should be safe being your home. And that personally fire is one of my biggest fears I guess.
Reports coming out that residents association had flagged fire concerns too.
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Post by stefy69 on Jun 14, 2017 8:46:18 GMT
Looking for positives, apparently various local organizations are offering shelter, food, clothing etc .
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Post by viserys on Jun 14, 2017 8:52:59 GMT
To some extent, yes. It's scary to think that your own home and "cocoon" becomes a death trap. On the other hand it reinforces my belief that you can't hide from all the calamities in the world, including terrorism, in your safety bubble-home. Terrible things can always happen everywhere, so no point in staying at home, too afraid to venture out. Oh I'm defiantly of the opinion you can't hide from the world, and it's never once occurred to me to stop doing anything because the world outside is 'scary'
I think for me is that general idea of the place you should be safe being your home. And that personally fire is one of my biggest fears I guess.
Reports coming out that residents association had flagged fire concerns too.
Yea, definitely agree on wanting my home to be a safe space. I don't think I'd ever want to live in a very tall building just because of these concerns. I'm on the fourth (top) floor here in my building, but if push came to shove, I could climb down over the balconies. I think. I would probably break a leg in the attempt, but it's comforting to know that this flat is not a death trap as there'd be no way out. Anyway, I hope poor Britain gets a break soon, it's been piling up recently. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 9:17:10 GMT
The thing is, we're meant to learn from previous catastrophic fires. Fires like Cocoanut Grove, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Bradford City stadium, we see what went wrong and new laws and safety standards come into place to ensure they never happen again. The fact that the Grenfell Action Group have identified so many points of concern over the years, even stating they fear only a catastrophic event will shed light on the dangerous living conditions, is a genuinely frightening thought. You don't get to cut costs with people's lives at stake.
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Post by theatremadness on Jun 14, 2017 10:20:30 GMT
Oh how awful. I feel I've been watching the BBC rolling news more than anything else recently.
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Post by d'James on Jun 14, 2017 11:03:02 GMT
Utterly terrifying. I can't think about it without feeling sick. Those poor people/families.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2017 11:43:23 GMT
Initial reports seem to be indicating that the panels added in the refurbishment helped spread the fire. They shouldn't have done - the materials they're made of should be fire-resistant to pass building regs - but that's what it looked like to outside observers.
Absolutely shocking that fire alarms appear not to have gone off.
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Post by hal9000 on Jun 14, 2017 15:16:27 GMT
One family was saved by a neighbour banging on their front door.
Disgraceful that the landlord didn't follow the code.
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Post by Phantom of London on Jun 14, 2017 15:24:09 GMT
I heard this on LBC as I was going to bed this morning and it sounded absolutely dreadful.
Saw this on the news this morning when I woke up and it is absolutely dreadful, so much so it made me well up.
What is even more gaoling is that the residents didn't have a option where they live, it wouldn't be an option, just take it or leave it (unwise), little did they know the place was a death trap, wasn't lessons learnt from Southwark/Lambeth similar disaster 10 tears ago?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 20:17:30 GMT
Absolutely terrifying, yet once we are past this phase there will need to be a reckoning and rightly so. We often see people demanding that 'something must be done' as a cry of powerlessness but here there appears to be a history of highlighting problems and being ignored. In this case, some people are likely be found to be responsible, whether through negligence or by design. As such, this may be one event that actually does change things.
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Post by lynette on Jun 14, 2017 22:14:00 GMT
Shocking that poor engineering and/or incompetent admin and/or cost cutting could have contributed to this tragedy. Not bad luck, not an enemy, not even human error as we usually understand it. This sort of event should have been consigned to history. It makes me very angry.
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Post by stefy69 on Jun 15, 2017 6:08:52 GMT
Shocking that poor engineering and/or incompetent admin and/or cost cutting could have contributed to this tragedy. Not bad luck, not an enemy, not even human error as we usually understand it. This sort of event should have been consigned to history. It makes me very angry. Agree 100%, my newspaper this morning said it was a like a throwback to the 1980's ! Harrowing stories emerging and so very very sad. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Jun 15, 2017 23:44:19 GMT
As I said earlier awful it happen to vulnerable residents, who had no real option where to live.
So they spent near £10m putting some fancy cladding up, so it would be more aesethic pleasing for the people living for,the more affluent housing, well they might as well saved that money and just poured f***ing petrol over the thing.
I cannot remember seeing something so dreadful.
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Post by hal9000 on Jun 16, 2017 2:24:09 GMT
Hopefully all the surviving residents are permanently resettled in the area.
I believe there will a LOT of buck passing among TPTB.
The Daily Mail has doxxed the man whose fridge caught fire and published his photograph, ethnicity and job. Disgraceful of them.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2017 4:56:19 GMT
The newspapers seem to have settled on a witchhunt approach, making a huge deal about anything they can find in a bid to show how caring they are. I'm getting particularly annoyed at the repeated anger over the advice for people to stay in their flats. In most situations that's exactly the right thing to do, but people are obviously supposed to use their intelligence to judge when general advice is no longer a suitable response to a specific situation. What do they think the advice should have been instead? Flee in every situation? Investigate to find out which places are on fire and calculate where the safest place is?
It may well be that nobody did anything wrong. Almost every safety feature we have today came about when something failed in an unexpected way and the response was to try to guard against the previously unknown failure mode so it wouldn't happen again. Even something as obvious as the idea of having brakes to stop vehicles required a death caused by not having them before they were implemented.
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Post by vdcni on Jun 16, 2017 7:32:50 GMT
At the moment it feels like those times in American where a big gun massacre happens and politicians line up to say they are praying for the victims and family but then turnaround and make it even easier for people to buy guns.
The Sun and Mail which for years have been anti health and safety, pro austerity (including public service cuts), pro legal aid cuts etc now put up big headlines of how could this happen! The Mail is even trying to blame green targets today and both are taking pot shots at Corbyn for politicising the event. Same with those who voted against tougher laws on safety standards for rented accommodation, what's the point of their sympathy when they had the opportunity to make things better and never took it.
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Post by stefy69 on Jun 16, 2017 8:44:52 GMT
I pray this doesn't turn into a political football which it appears to me it is in danger of doing...
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Post by vdcni on Jun 16, 2017 8:58:14 GMT
I pray this doesn't turn into a political football which it appears to me it is in danger of doing... Depends what you mean by that to be honest? There look to be failings in the system and therefore it must become a political issue. At the moment the Tories are more in the firing line as they are the local and central government and because they are the party associated with austerity which is getting a lot of the blame. They also tend to side with landlords over renters to a greater degree than Labour. They could have helped themselves by looking a bit more clued up with the media and Theresa May not going to see the residents is a baffling decision. However as this is investigated I wouldn't be surprised if the last Labour government is also shown to be negligent, frankly all of us but particularly the politicians should be looking at the decisions we make and the priorities we have that may have led to this. |
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