Grenfell Towers a Mother's Escape

It was said Grenfell Towers fire began within the first hour after midnight, a fridge on the fourth floor exploded. It was not the fault of the person who owned the fridge though it does depend on the circumstances of this incident. It is the fault of the fire and safety regulations, one comment I heard was the fire had gone from the fourth floor to the 18th floor in eight minutes. Further there was no firealarm system in the building, considering the many millions which had been spent on refurbishment again this is mind boggling. Cosequently cospiracy theories have arrisen the local council of Kensington and Chelsea have been practicing social cleansing. There has to be no doubt such an abhorent thing was happening, though whether it was deliverate is another question, but rather it is a matter of unintended consequences when a local authority begins to attract the wealthy.

There is one story about a mother who escaped Grenfell Towers which is an active expression of how it is necessary to do something. At about 1 a.m. she phoned the police to say her Tower block was on fire, she was worried, the smoke was thick and she feared for the safety of her two sons, both young aabout 10 and 12 years of age. She asked what should she do as her flat was on the twelth floor. The reply was to keep the door closed and stay inside. She took their advice and waited. The fire got worse so she rang the Police again. She asked them if the firebrigade was coming, she said there was fire on her floor she needed firefighters on her floor. Over the next hour and a half she rang them up a total of five times, of which the first four times they advised she stay in her flat, don't move from there it was safest. Then she phoned again and now it was about 2 a.m. the voice on the phone said get out now, if you don't you will die. She was a little taken aback by the urgency of the voice as the Police had not phoned her back to tell her about the change in their advice after all had she known an hour ago it would of been better to have made the attempt then. Perhaps the firebrigade were giving advice to the Police and after a short period of fighting the blaze they recognised nothing could be done. The resident took towels and wet them, she took her boys and went to the front door opening it to thick acrid stinking black smoke. One of her boys said:

"Mummy I don't want to go," her response was,
"If we don't go we will die."

They left their home. There was no description from the mother of how they managed it down the stairs, how that single stairwell was most likely thick with smoke or how she may have passed bodies and firefighters on those stairs. It might of been crowded and awkward to drag her sons out with her. She did it though, she saved her own life and the lives of her sons. The emergency services didn't reach her floor and they failed to phone her back and inform her to get out. It was only her persistent phoning and pestering of the Police she took her own safety into her own hands. Now she says her sons are wary of Police advice, she says they feel like they don't trust them.  It is understandable, in this real incident the organization of the emergency services sounds like it was attrocious. They may have done what they could, but there was a lot they didn't do and I don't understand given they have breathing apparatus why there had not been a group which had climbed those stairs and told all the residents to get out of the tower. Perhaps the fire was an ongoing situation and they continued to take and evaluate information as it came in.

The blame is squarely on the shoulders of Kensington and Chelsea Council. They say all fire safety regulations were met. But as there has been no change to these regulations for at least ten years they were out of date. The tower housed working class and lower class people, the kind of people who are the salt of the earth, the kind who do their best just to make ends meet. Grenfell Tower is in an area full of multiple millionaires, we saw Lilly Allen stating she had never seen an incident where the media were downplaying the number of deaths. At the point of her interview they had 17 confirmed recognised deaths. Lilly said how she had walked up and down the area past firefighters and Police who were saying there will be at least 150 deaths. Why on earth could the media not use such phrases as "expected deaths to reach over 100 persons?" It was as though they were trivialising the extent of this tragedy. At the moment this figure has now gone up to 58.  Additionally the emergency services state it is likely it will take weeks if not months to recover all the bodies and some of them may not be identified. Given the inferno raged for hours some of those bodies turned to complete ash as it had effectively been an incinerator. The building will need to be made safe, the process will be painfully slow. As the days pass more information will come out more stories with sad endings.