No words to describe the horror of the burning Grenfell tower in London and the tragic aftermath. Watching video footage of the Syrian man crying about his brother’s phone call asking “why did you leave me? I’m still in the flat, where are you?” is just heartbreaking and has been giving me nightmares, so I can only imagine the horror for those directly affected. All those people missing presumed dead. The mothers of the children whose hands they let go of in the black all-consuming smoke. The numbers are growing, as is the understandable anger.
Aside from the woeful lack of alarms, fire hydrants and sprinklers, the one escape route down the stairs, the heads-will-roll cheap non-fire resistant cladding, nobody was prepared. In the time the fire took to take hold, there should have been someone – a fire monitor who should have run through all the floors knocking on doors with a megaphone and an alarm getting people out in an orderly manner. It’s easy to say that in hindsight I know, but so much precious time was wasted because nobody expected that outcome. Fire hoses didn’t reach the higher floors and there were no safety nets to catch the people who chose to jump. At the very least, whilst this is being investigated, every single tower block should be provided with alarms, sprinklers, blow up safety nets and every house should be given not only ropes, but parachutes to use in an emergency. Perhaps there should also be slides installed from the roof down for people to escape with. This tragedy could have been avoided and lets hope that this horrific experience will at least never happen again.
My son has already been to volunteer – everyone everywhere, especially in London feels the need to do something to help – donating money is the most useful thing we can all do right now whilst the government endeavours to find them new places to live as they have asked people to stop bringing clothes and other supplies for the time being.
So all I can do right now is donate and share the link to the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund here – they’ve raised over a £1.5m so far:-
Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund: Grenell Tower Fire
Could it be going any worse for Theresa May right now? Her failed PR visit back to the tower the next day to meet the survivors she didn’t manage to talk to the first time has backfired badly. The anger is palpable and she must feel like she’s living on a very different planet to the one she had imagined she was living on pre the election. Brexit negotiations are due to start tomorrow. We couldn’t be in a worse position to negotiate anything.
