Resignations At Tower Fire Council

[bernardgreen]

Not even a tea truck and portaloos. Sleeping on the floor of a church hall.

Receptions and emergency shelters were in operation as well as the church hall. Westway Sports and Fitness Centre being one of them. Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre another one.

When I worked in the electricity industry, there was a major storm which brought down a lot of power lines, damaged buildings and roads, brought down trees and cut supplies to a lot of people.

A very different scenario to a burning tower block where rescue has the highest priority and urgent transport and treatment of casualties is necessary. There is direct contact with highly emotional members of the public, most directly affected and in need of help but also many who just get in the way ( although they mean well ). With a major power outage only a minority of the public are at serious risk of injury or deteriorating security / health / safety.

That said I am not be-littling the event of the emergency crews who turn out to restore power supplies.

By lunchtime

How long after the storm was that ?

 

[Doug99]

When I worked in the electricity industry, there was a major storm which brought down a lot of power lines, damaged buildings and roads, brought down trees and cut supplies to a lot of people. It exceeded the normal damage tenfold. By lunchtime extra engineers were at work having been called in on their rest days and from unaffected parts of the region, and portable generators had been delivered and connected to certain facilities. By teatime office workers had packed up to leave their desks, terminals and office space free for extra support staff. By nightfall, engineers from other companies in the country had filled the car parks with their vehicles and were being briefed in conference rooms prior to setting out. The control rooms and vehicles were already equipped with PMR because mobile and landlines cannot be relied on in a major event. By the second day, crews from the same company in a nearby country were at work.

And Kensington and Chelsea council bumbled to help a few hundred survivors? Not even a tea truck and portaloos. Sleeping on the floor of a church hall.

On any day you care to name, any borough might have a flood, or a fire, or a chemical works blow up, or a burst water main, or a petrol tanker crash, or a train wreck.

There might have been 600 people living in the block. The local hospital was warned to expect hundreds of casualties. They got 18. That's the saddest part of the story.

The utility companies have established their "Emergency Action Plans" with call out rotas et al over many years and continue to learn to fine tune their processes. I can't recall any other situation where 600(?) traumatised people have suffered a tragedy in the middle of the night, resulting in them owning just the PJs they were wearing at the time. No doubt all councils are reviewing their own EAPs having learnt from the Grenfell Tower lesson.

 

[Doggit]

Interesting article today saying that the managment company hired an independant fire safty assesor, and he found numerous safety infringements, and then told them about a legal loophole that allowed them not to publish the report, and this meant the fire brigade safety officers couldn't comment on the problems.

Lets see how long it takes for the management company to start resigning.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Can there be any loopholes which say people living in a flammable tube is NOT a bad idea?

 

[JohnD]

On any day you care to name, any borough might have a flood, or a fire, or a chemical works blow up, or a burst water main, or a petrol tanker crash, or a train wreck.

 

[bernardgreen]

A Borough Council had a well rehearsed emergency response plan for flooding. It worked perfectly at each simulated flood exercise ( annually IIRC ).

The day that the rains came and the river did flood during the night the plan didn't work quite as well as it should have done. This may have had something to do with one oversight. The incident controller, his deputy and one other senior role holder could not reach the control room. The villages they lived in were on the other side of the flooded river. The flood developed faster than "planned" due to a housing estate having been built on a floodplain, an error by the Planning Department that had not been added to the emergency response plan.

A site wide emergency response exercise ( approx 1000 staff ) was planned to happen on a Wednesday afternoon. All the important role holders arranged to be on site and available at the assigned time. The site safety office started the simulated incident at 09:30 Tuesday morning. Some major changes were made as a result.

 

[tony1851]

While sympathising with the victims, who have been through a terrible ordeal, it is well to remember that Fire Safety is as much a function of how a building is used, as well as how it is designed and constructed.
Some of the photos of the lobbies (taken before the fire) show flat-entrance doors which are clearly uPVC rather than proper fire doors. Fires in individual flats will soon have turned the uPVC into toxic gases, which is the most likely cause of death for the majority of victims.
Were staircase doors wedged open to get buggies through? - this would lead to rapid smoke spread up the staircase enclosure and cut off residents in the top flats.
Was any rubbish (eg discarded furniture) allowed to be stacked in the lobbies and staircase enclosure?
How many of the flats were illegally sub-let? This would lead to overcrowding, which itself is dangerous.
Could many of the residents be from the third world and not understand the importance of fire doors, and of keeping corridors and lobies clear of rubbish?

One thing which gets up my nose is sloppy reporting and pure fake news, particularly from the Graun. Some journalists have claimed that Building Regulations have been 'watered down' and 'de-regulated', which of course is complete nonsense.

 

[JohnD]

You're right, Tony, it's essential to divert attention away from the fact that this building became unsurvivable in about 17 minutes due to it having been encased in flammable wrapping.

Keep trying to throw in what-ifs and maybe you can create the Impression that the dead victims are to blame for living in a giant roman candle. I bet they never paid for regular fire inspections, or ignored the recommendations. They might even have been guilty of failing to update Building or Fire Regulations.

You might not be on to a winner, though.

Today's count is 181 tower blocks wrapped in firelighters.

 

[Roger928]

All the guy in the flat needed where the fire started was a powder fire extinguisher.
Or at least someone on that floor with one.

 

[JohnD]

Sooner or later there will be a fire in a flat.

If the block is wrapped in flammable material, sooner or later there will be a catastrophe.

This was not even the first case where cladding has caused an unexpectedly bad fire.

Lets hope it will be the last.

 

[tony1851]

You're right, Tony, it's essential to divert attention away from the fact that this building became unsurvivable in about 17 minutes due to it having been encased in flammable wrapping.

I wasn't advocating wrapping a high building in ZIP firelighters.

But an article by a survivor in today's Times related that she managed to get down the stairs even though they were filled with smoke. So why were the stairs filled with smoke, when the fire was on the external walls of the building? Staircase enclosures on high buildings are supposed to be places of relative safety from fire and smoke, if maintained as they were designed.

Clearly the safety of the staircase was compromised, possibly by: 1. some residents on some floors wedging open the doors to the staircase enclosure and 2. some residents replacing the doors to their flats with PVC doors. So when a fire on the external wall breaks through a flat window, within a short space of time the flat entrance door is toast, and toxic smoke goes into the outer lobby and into the staircase enclosure if the doors were kept open.

Clearly the management would be at fault if they did not regularly check and instruct residents to maintain fire doors at the entrance to each flat.

 

[transam]

Report on the radio last week said that some of the tower blocks that have been inspected since

Have fire doors that are missing ??? which I assume means have been replaced with non fire doors or maybe the doors have been pinched ??

 

[Ihavenojob]

Have fire doors that are missing ??? which I assume means have been replaced with non fire doors or maybe the doors have been pinched ??

How often have you been to a house with a loft conversion, or flats that the residents have disabled the self closing mechanism on doors ?
Management types are good at audits & making sure every penny is accounted for, but most know **** all about building regs.

 

[Brigadier]

When I worked in the electricity industry, there was a major storm which brought down a lot of power lines, damaged buildings and roads, brought down trees and cut supplies to a lot of people. It exceeded the normal damage tenfold. By lunchtime extra engineers were at work having been called in on their rest days and from unaffected parts of the region, and portable generators had been delivered and connected to certain facilities. By teatime office workers had packed up to leave their desks, terminals and office space free for extra support staff. By nightfall, engineers from other companies in the country had filled the car parks with their vehicles and were being briefed in conference rooms prior to setting out. The control rooms and vehicles were already equipped with PMR because mobile and landlines cannot be relied on in a major event. By the second day, crews from the same company in a nearby country were at work.

What rate did these Mother Teresas jump to it for, I wonder?
Power workers are very well paid, as they have the country by the short and curlies.

 

[JohnD]

Very much less than that overpaid **** who headed Kensington & Chelsea council.

And AFAIK none of them had so much spare public money that they tipped more than a million a year over an Opera Festival so they could prance around in white tie and tails hob-nobbing with other overpriviledged ****s.

Do you think the councillors lack the ability to organise a ****-up in a brewery because they are not paid enough? Or because they are incompetent politicos?