Grenfell Tower

[Woosh]

all councils have been asked to send in samples of cladding if used on their high rise buildings for lab tests.
Apparently, the vast majority passed, only some in London have the wrong type.

 

[flecc]

Those lawyers giving of their time to take up the case of the residents of Grenfell Tower, both living and dead, have expressed the wish for an inquest(s), rather than a public inquiry as in their experience, the government, and all its agencies plus local government have less influence in that forum whereas their agents exercise a lot of control in a public inquiry.

Tom

I listened to a discussion on this and it still came down in favour of a public inquiry for various reasons. An inquest will open first anyway, then adjourn for the public inquiry to proceed.

The worst delaying factor will be the police criminal inquiry, since nothing can start until they've finished, and that could take a very long time. We are only now seeing four Barclay's executives on charges from the 2008 banking crisis, since the investigation has taken so long.

And it's generally the case that justice is inversely proportional to delay.
.

 

[tillson]

I'm hearing that the people who were made homeless and survived the terrible fire are to be rehoused in £1.5 million + apartments within a block costing over £2 billion.

 

[the_killjoy]

These people are being rehoused in social housing which was already designated in the complex as part of the planning permission.

 

[flecc]

I'm hearing that the people who were made homeless and survived the terrible fire are to be rehoused in £1.5 million + apartments within a block costing over £2 billion.

Not quite, they are not the expensive ones in the same block but social housing ones. They've been bought by the City of London Corporation in an HCA housing deal. The key thing is that they are in the same area as promised, particularly important for those who are employed.
.

 

[oldtom]

The matter of arithmetic with regard to numbers of fatalities at Grenfell Tower continues to disturb me. It seems to me that the government and its media wing have decided to make no further announcements, perhaps hoping that the matter will disappear from the nation's consciousness if it disappears from headline news.

I believe the authorities by now have a pretty accurate picture of fatality numbers but know that it would be politically imprudent to release more bad news.

If we had been made aware that several hundred escaped the blaze and survived, we could easily calculate very roughly the number that succumbed. Aid volunteers seem astonished at how few survivors appear to require the assistance on offer - that is rather telling!

Tom

 

[Woosh]

you seem to have an obsessive belief that the real number is much higher than the 79 that the police have come up with.

 

[flecc]

The matter of arithmetic with regard to numbers of fatalities at Grenfell Tower continues to disturb me.

I don't think there's necessarily a problem with the numbers, these are people with proven self-sufficiency. The problem is the large number who have disappeared to friends etc, often in other parts of the country for various reasons. Among those is uncertainty about their immigration status and quite a few have spoken about this to the solicitors offering free advice.

As a result the Home Office have promised that they will not use the disaster circumstances to investigate anyone's status. The problem now is getting that message to people who are deliberately keeping off the radar and sometimes not even in London any more.
.

 

[Danidl]

you seem to have an obsessive belief that the real number is much higher than the 79 that the police have come up with.

.. what an extraordinary response. To suggest that it is being obsessive to want basic fundamental facts. Here was a building designed to hold 500 to 600 people . A full week later there is not even any ballpark figure on the number of survivors ie people who were in the building and suceeded in exiting the building, alive. There is a remarkably accurate figure for the number of people assisted by the fire service, a number of those in hospital, presumably including those assisted out, and a number 79 of confirmed fatalities.
According to reports , a number of survivors have been accommodated in luxury flats. So these are the confirmed survivors. What is their number.
Had 300 to 400 people managed to decend an average of 12 flights of stairs, would the narrative not have been .. single stairwell did not need sprinkler, 90% walk to safety. ..
The first statistic for any accident is how many deaths..
The silence of the UK media on this topic is defening.

 

[Woosh]

what an extraordinary response.

I thought that the police have counted all the bodies they could find.

 

[tillson]

I don't believe that the problem with disclosing numbers has anything to do with the wilful withholding of information. They simply don't know how many people were in the tower block. I suspect that there is s large number who shouldn't have been living there. These people will not appear on any records, so whether they have perished or done a runner will be hard, if not impossible, to determine. Depending on the heat & intensity of the fire, there may not be much in the way of human remains to help either.

If the exact number is ever to be known, the community will need to work with the authorities and provide any information the have regarding people who may have been in the block illegally. I can't see that happening though, so I don't ever expect that the total number of fatalities will be anything other than an estimate.

 

[flecc]

There should be enough skeletal evidence to get an accurate final figure and gender/age mix, but to ensure accuracy the forensic recovery from each dwelling will be very time consuming. This is skilled work and not something for the police or fire brigade to carry out, and I'm sure they've been instructed according to not move anything. Look, don't touch being the rule.

So eventually after a very long delay I fully expect to get an accurate figure for all those who perished, but identifications will frequently be lacking.
.

 

[mike killay]

I don't think there's necessarily a problem with the numbers, these are people with proven self-sufficiency. The problem is the large number who have disappeared to friends etc, often in other parts of the country for various reasons. Among those is uncertainty about their immigration status and quite a few have spoken about this to the solicitors offering free advice.

As a result the Home Office have promised that they will not use the disaster circumstances to investigate anyone's status. The problem now is getting that message to people who are deliberately keeping off the radar and sometimes not even in London any more.
.

Sadly, the fire burned so long and hotly that it may be possible that there are not any human remains left to be found.

 

[oldtom]

If the exact number is ever to be known, the community will need to work with the authorities and provide any information the have regarding people who may have been in the block illegally.

I understand your point but on the other hand, I'm keen to know how many families require to be rehoused and the actual numbers so affected.

As for the identification of victims, I think modern forensic techniques allow for even the worst-ravaged fire victims to be identified or at the very least, numbered.

Tom

 

[mike killay]

Years ago there was a fire at the Castle Hotel in Merthyr Tydfil.
Lots of couples were able to escape, unfortunately the night porter died.
Amazingly, although at least 30 people were seen to escape, only 4 people admitted to having been in the hotel at the time.

 

[flecc]

Sadly, the fire burned so long and hotly that it may be possible that there are not any human remains left to be found.

I doubt that's the case, with the windows blown out the conditions would not be like those in a cremation furnace. The official interior photos released show plenty of evidence of surviving materials that would disappear long before bone vanished in a fire.

I'm sure there will be enough bone remaining for skilled forensic recovery and analysis to give numbers, gender and approximate age. But it will take time as I've mentioned, so we'll need to be patient.
.

 

[flecc]

Amazingly, although at least 30 people were seen to escape, only 4 people admitted to having been in the hotel at the time.

All booked in as Mr & Mrs Smith?
.

 

[flecc]

if you are on benefits and you got over 6k in savings ect the amount you get goes down thus why it is £5500.

if you got over 16k you are not entitled to anything!

plus no one will rent to anyone on universal credit as can be up to 10-15 weeks to get housing benefit paid so buy that time you will have evictions papers in the letter box or go in to debt as they dont back date it thus why they wont rent to them in the first place.

as ever that 5 million will go in hotel costs 5x the cost of council rent a week.

As I replied earlier, this was completely wrong. The Prime Minister has confirmed that benefits will not be affected in any way by any of the grant monies for the disaster. Those affected will continue to get their same benefits.

Hotels, rehousing and and associated costs are all being met by the authorities and will not be subtracted from the grant money. The £5 millions grant money will be exclusively to replace the resident's possessions. In addition there's £500 pocket money and £5000 into each affected resident's bank account to help them cope with life in the immediate future as they are rehoused.

Also there will be no checks on immigration status.

 

[Danidl]

I don't believe that the problem with disclosing numbers has anything to do with the wilful withholding of information. They simply don't know how many people were in the tower block. I suspect that there is s large number who shouldn't have been living there. These people will not appear on any records, so whether they have perished or done a runner will be hard, if not impossible, to determine. Depending on the heat & intensity of the fire, there may not be much in the way of human remains to help either.

If the exact number is ever to be known, the community will need to work with the authorities and provide any information the have regarding people who may have been in the block illegally. I can't see that happening though, so I don't ever expect that the total number of fatalities will be anything other than an estimate.

... Think about it a while.. if you start with an assumption that 600 people were murdered, you have a starting estimate and work down. Street CCTV for a number of streets around can would indicate whether more people left the area than arrived . If the police were investigating a single murder they would typically do that anyway. Were it an air traffic incident, that type of rigour would already be in place.
If people were in the building illegally, would that not swell the numbers rather than reduce them?
The flats were leased to known people who were legal, they had children attending schools, crèche and doctors. Residents were in employment or were on welfare. .. These people had mobile phones. At this stage it would have been expected that a list of missing must exist. Under privacy laws the names should be withheld but not the number of missing.

That the police have stated there there is a criminal investigation underway, and one of the outcomes where loss of life is concerned is murder or manslaughter indictments. So my opening statement is not fanciful.

 

[tillson]

... Think about it a while.. if you start with an assumption that 600 people were murdered, you have a starting estimate and work down. Street CCTV for a number of streets around can would indicate whether more people left the area than arrived . If the police were investigating a single murder they would typically do that anyway. Were it an air traffic incident, that type of rigour would already be in place.
If people were in the building illegally, would that not swell the numbers rather than reduce them?
The flats were leased to known people who were legal, they had children attending schools, crèche and doctors. Residents were in employment or were on welfare. .. These people had mobile phones. At this stage it would have been expected that a list of missing must exist. Under privacy laws the names should be withheld but not the number of missing.

That the police have stated there there is a criminal investigation underway, and one of the outcomes where loss of life is concerned is murder or manslaughter indictments. So my opening statement is not fanciful.

CCTV is inaccurate because of blind spots, areas of no coverage, access & egress routed out of view etc. Add in the factor of counting the same person twice due to it being impossible to positively identify each and every single person moving around, and CCTV is very inaccurate. It's ok for tracking an individual or small group, but no use for this purpose. Mobile telephone analysis is equally vague, usually giving a radius around a mast of anywhere between a few hundred metres and several kilometres. If you are lucky you might get a 120 degree arc and a range, but that's not the norm. It's not as easy as it looks in the telly crime dramas. So, CCTV and mobile phone analysis isn't going to provide an answer.

Human remains within the building, if there are any, will provide the most accurate estimate of fatalities. It's going to be a fingertip type search of every corner and I don't know if the building is safe enough for teams to go in and search to that level of detail. If the structure has been weakened by the heat, it may be in danger of collapsing.

The council will have records of who is registered to live there, so ticking them off the dead or alive list will be a piece of cake. It's the ones who where in there as guests, or living there illegally, that will be hard to count.