Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington - news and discussion

[Orang Utan]

How can someone who has to flee an enraged people continue as Prime Minister?

Guardian live feed: "One local said: “The tower block is more strong and stable than that woman.”

 

[J Ed]

Pointless question: this has done for May, but can/how do the Tory party get out of this? It's arguably their legacy from the past 7 years of austerity (plus their general history, obviously); is there any way they turn things around? Another war?

Everything is so fluid now I don't think it makes sense to try and predict anything.

 

[planetgeli]

The two-hour Cabinet committee meeting marked an escalation after the government had initially relied on junior ministers to tackle the consequences of the fire, categorising it as a “civil contingency”.

*Holds back from saying what he's thinking*

Yeah, I'm not surprised you need that amount of security Mrs May.

 

[J Ed]

Because literally no other fucker in her party wants it right now. She's got no fucking choice and if it wasn't for the deaths of so many people we'd all be rolling on the floor pissing ourselves laughing at her. She's a fucking joke.

Yes, I get this, but even so... god can you imagine how much she must want to resign!

 

[Lord Camomile]

Everything is so fluid now I don't think it makes sense to try and predict anything.

Aye, fair point to a pointless question

 

[belboid]

Everything is so fluid now I don't think it makes sense to try and predict anything.

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and humanity is at last compelled to face with sober senses our real conditions of life, and our relations with our kind.

 

[not-bono-ever]

This could get shitty as it gets dark tonight. Another long hot weekend will not assist. May needs to roll out plan b to keep a lid on things tonight

 

[neonwilderness]

Theresa May leaves church by side door to chants of 'coward'

Theresa May has left a church in north Kensington being used as a support hub for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire through a side door to chants of "coward".

 

[J Ed]

This could get shitty as it gets dark tonight. Another long hot weekend will not assist. May needs to roll out plan b to keep a lid on things tonight

Cameron didn't put soldiers on the street, would May?

 

[Casual Observer]

Luke Barrett is a journalist at Inside Housing magazine who wrote about the Grenfell Tower refurbishment before the fire. He says that the last fire risk assessment at Grenfell Tower was in December 2015 which contradicts what a KCC councillor told Radio 4 two days ago.

Crucially, at the time of the last assessment, the renovations were underway but had not been completed.

It seems odd that that a post-refurbishment fire risk assessment was not carried out once the work was completed - particularly given size of the building, the wide scope of the refurbishment project and the existence of one solitary stairwell escape route serving 120 flats on 24 floors. That's not to mention the stream of outward correspondence from Grenfell tenants expressing safety concerns post-refurbishment.

More than half of the 82 KCTMO 'managed' tower blocks have had more recent fire and safety assessments than Grenfell Tower, despite Grenfell Tower being the second tallest and presumably one of the most recently refurbished.

Back to the sprinkler issue, it's been seemingly compulsory for residential buildings higher than 30m to have sprinklers fitted since 2007. Grenfell Tower is 70m. Irrespective of whether or KCC leader Nick Paget-Brown's doubtful claim that sprinklers weren't fitted because the residents didn't want them, it would surely be the council's legal obligation to ensure they were fitted regardless of residents wishes.

FOI: Grenfell Tower had not been risk assessed for 18 months | News | Inside Housing

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...chment_data/file/441669/BR_PDF_AD_B2_2013.pdf

 

[Rosemary Jest]

May wont resign, at least not yet, she's as deluded as they come, she feels nothing.

Dangerous.

 

[Lord Camomile]

"no bank cards, no money" - priorities, as ever, on point.

 

[J Ed]

I have read a fair few lefties compare state of neoliberalism in Britain to late 80s in the USSR.

 

[not-bono-ever]

right at the end, ceaucescu flailingly announced massive increases in wages as the crowd got restless. Then fucked off in a helicopter.


This is mays ceaucescu moment

 

[not-bono-ever]

Cameron didn't put soldiers on the street, would May?

Would they bother turning out ?

 

[J Ed]

Would they bother turning out ?

I think they would, yeah, don't you?

 

[1%er]

Theresa May leaves church by side door to chants of 'coward'

TV pictures here showed police holding crowds back to let her car through (when I say crowds it looked like maybe a couple of hundred people on both sides of the road).

 

[bimble]

I'm scared to go to the demo seems totally possible they'll do the horses & kettling I don't know .

 

[bi0boy]

Pointless question: this has done for May, but can/how do the Tory party get out of this? It's arguably their legacy from the past 7 years of austerity (plus their general history, obviously); is there any way they turn things around? Another war?

This has certainly torpedoed Johnson's leadership ambitions, him having been Mayor and all.

 

[DaveCinzano]

At St Clement’s Church, the prime minister was greeted as she left the building and got in her car by shouts of “shame on you” and “coward, coward”. She did not speak to anyone as she left. One local said: “The tower block is more strong and stable than that woman.” There was a brief scuffle between one protester and some of the more than 30 police lined up outside the building.

Grenfell Tower fire: Prime minister announces £5m aid package – latest

When ordinary punters - not pundits, not commentariat types - throw your election slogan back in your face with such contempt, you are in trouble.

 

[Plumdaff]

I'm scared to go to the demo seems totally possible they'll do the horses & kettling I don't know .

Go, keep to the edges, its often fairly obvious from there when the horses and kettling are coming. I wish I could go but I'm not in London.

 

[free spirit]

Oh lord, really?

I've not seen the detailing but if its as described it sounds like a proper dog's dinner.

A couple of things though. What was the insulation actually fixed back to? There must have been some sort of substrate, surely? Also the firebreaks (I can't believe I'm even talking about firebreaks on a building this high) wouldn't need to be in contact against the back the cladding. The whole principle of ventilated rainscreen is that there is a continual vented cavity, a firebreak would block this. Instead you'd have intumescents (expanding chemicals) in there to expand and block the cavity at the first sign of fire.

I queried the presence /performance of the inutumescents towards the start of this thread.

Also fucking mastic. If anyone is still using mastic (which has a design life of about 6 minutes) on facades in this era they need shooting.

Ah, I didn't know about the intumescent strips, but in this situation I can't see how they'd work / can see why they clearly didn't. They're surrounded by insulation so will be insulated from the initial fire for long enough for the flames to have jumped through the air gap. The air gap would create a vertical chimney effect so the flames would shoot up the outside of the insulation in the air gap pretty quickly.

The mastic I referred to would be on the inside of the internal window surround, sealing the corners.

The insulation was fixed to the existing wall, but the window was moved out from the previous position so that the window itself was located around half way into the insulation section, presumably fixed to the sub structure of the cladding in some way. Which means that their would only have been the internal window surround between the inside of the flats and the insulation material (unless there was a fireproof layer at that point, but that doesn't seem to have been the case from the way the fire spread, and I can well see that just not happening.

The external fire breaks can be seen still in place on the pictures of the burned building, about half way between each window section running horizontally.

Scary shit, but frankly I've been expecting to see something like this for a long time having seen how some of these systems work, and also worked in buildings where it's clear that many trades don't give a toss about maintaining fire seals when running their cables etc. I remember one job where we were diligently putting the insulation back into the fire breaks around our cables only to look up and see an entire 1.2m wide roof to ceiling strip of fire sealing material missing completely - reported it but I bet it's still missing. I also see they've now exempted soil stacks from being in fire proof enclosures, because a 5 inch plastic soil stack / vent is completely fire proof by itself and in no way would simply burn and create a 5 inch diameter hole in any fire break.

There's a thread I think on here from 4-5 years back showing a tower block somewhere in Europe where the cladding caught fire in a similar way to this. Criminal that this work was still being done in this way even after that.

 

[BigTom]

Go, keep to the edges, its often fairly obvious from there when the horses and kettling are coming. I wish I could go but I'm not in London.

This. horses you'll be able to see around and know where they might use them. Kettling is a bit more tricky but it's a warm evening so if you get stuck it won't be so bad, just take enough water for a few hours in case you need it - but if you hang around at the edges and pay some attention to police you can see when they close off streets and move toward open ones / leave if it looks like they are closing it completely.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I wish I could go too, nowhere near it. Lived in London for a bit too. Hope you all unleash hell.

 

[free spirit]

I agree that's a crap detail but there's significant difference between planning drawings/consent and building regulations/working drawings consent. Planners are not concerned with fixing or fire stopping details.

For what it's worth I think the issue of panel A v. Panel B is irrelevant in the sense that if both satisfied the relevant regulations then most specifiers would choose the cheaper one. The potential fault lies with setting those standards which it seems uk lags behind other countries despite evidence from other fires indicating changes needed.

you'd hope there would be a significant difference, but the evidence of the burning tower would seem to indicate not.

 

[mather]

The estate I live on is due to be demolished and rebuilt in a few years time and I have just found out that the company that was awarded the contract to do it is the same fucking company that 'renovated' Grenfell Tower!

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I say in my Scottish accent

 

[Dogsauce]

This could get shitty as it gets dark tonight. Another long hot weekend will not assist. May needs to roll out plan b to keep a lid on things tonight

Maybe they don't want to keep a lid on things? If it kicks off, it'll be the protesters that become the bad guys, get villified in the press for attacking our brave bobbies, putting the strain on our knackered heroes from the fire service etc. The perfect scenario to deflect the heat from themselves.

 

[bemused]

Irrespective of whether or KCC leader Nick Paget-Brown's doubtful claim that sprinklers weren't fitted because the residents didn't want them, it would surely be the council's legal obligation to ensure they were fitted regardless of residents wishes.

That did strike me as an odd reason not to fit them.

 

[Who PhD]

Pointless question: this has done for May, but can/how do the Tory party get out of this? It's arguably their legacy from the past 7 years of austerity (plus their general history, obviously); is there any way they turn things around? Another war?

by stalling and buck passing with their media friends and hoping the people run out of stem, hoefully that won't happen