Current Affairs - The Bear and Badger

hunk

Heh, told you this would be bigger than just Grenfell.

Diluted Dante

Liveinadive wrote:

An estimated 600 tower blocks could have similar cladding to Grenfell. 600!

How the fuck did we end up in this situation?

[Deleted User]

Jacob Rees Mogg: time to tear down all the high rise towers. Surveys show ppl don't wanna live in them.

They don't wanna live in shitty, unsafe, run down and poorly managed blocks. That's no argument for abandoning them, it is to make them safe, to maintain them, and to run them well. If you can only do that by tearing them down, then fucking rebuild them like we are building these fancy high rises everywhere in London.

[Deleted User]

My suspicion early on was that the material passed regulations. The fact it seems to have been used widely across the UK and passed 16 inspections at Grenfell seem to add strength to this.

Everyone is reading from the same sheet but the sheet is dangerously wrong.

[Deleted User]

The bit of the scandal which I have not seen noted is this: the fire safety inspections are conducted by... Council officers.

The client commissioning the work and wanting to keep costs down is.... The council.

I think a norm will emerge from this inquiry, that where the council is doing a big tower block project, an adjacent council's team will carry out the safety assessment.

Diluted Dante

Liveinadive wrote:

My suspicion early on was that the material passed regulations. The fact it seems to have been used widely across the UK and passed 16 inspections at Grenfell seem to add strength to this. Everyone is reading from the same sheet but the sheet is dangerously wrong.

Hammond indicated the material might not actually be legal, but I've not seen any follow up on this.

[Deleted User]

You can use this material in compartments provided that it is blocked off by fire retardant material is my guess. Otherwise, if the fire catches in the layer above the concrete, it can combust ad infinitem upwards - the chimney effect which clearly took place at grenfell.

[Deleted User]

It is strange that we have had interviews with the Chancellor on the subject but I am yet to see anything from a Proffesional, be it an inspector or someone from a third party refurb company.

When a plane crashes there are a handful of experts that regularly show up on the news. Aircrash investigators, engineers etc.

[Deleted User]

They're all scared

M0stly harm13ss

None of the experts (safety, project managers, etc) wants to be the one that turns up on the TV and exposes the nice little business they all have going on. Professional suicide

Vela

Diluted Dante wrote:

Vela wrote:

What sort of conditions would the affordable housing be like? I assume they wouldn't be as particularly expensively furnished but should have all the necessities yeah? Parking? What about employment? Is it that far from their old homes and is there much in the way of employment or unemployment in that part of the city? Is it going to be good or bad for them to move there, irrespective of the posh knobs upstairs?

It's about 2 miles away I think.

Excellent. That should help minimise the disruption to employment and social circles in the area.

dynamiteReady

hunk wrote:

Heh, told you this would be bigger than just Grenfell.

Every knew this would be bigger than Grenfell.

Vela

600+ ?

Holy shit.

What's going to be the quickest way to get them fixed safely? Tear of clading, install sprinklers etc. That's going to be an urgent job before winter hits which I assume is when more electrical use = increased risk of building fires.

They need to really invest in some independent regulators, and fund them, because standards are no good if no-one follows them and gets away with shoddy work/maintennance.

Of another concern is phoenixing. I suspect a number of companies responsible for installing, manufacturing or importing non-compliant materials are going to wind up operations and then re-emerge as a mysteriously different-yet-identical-in-appearance company to try and dodge responsibility for those 600 buildings.

hunk

Liveinadive wrote:

It is strange that we have had interviews with the Chancellor on the subject but I am yet to see anything from a Proffesional, be it an inspector or someone from a third party refurb company. When a plane crashes there are a handful of experts that regularly show up on the news. Aircrash investigators, engineers etc.

This, otherwise you're safety regulations will always be shit with disasters waiting just aroud the corner.

[Deleted User]

Looks like 600 was May's inability to speak properly.
There are 600 blocks with any form of cladding, so the number of dangerous ones is likely to be much lower.

The complication appears to be that the polyethylene cladding is deemed safe when coupled with some form of mineral based insulation between it and the main building.

I have a strong feeling this is where the mistakes have happened. Regs potentially worded poorly and misinterpreted, be that accidentally or wilfully.

Escape

legaldinho wrote:

Jacob Rees Mogg: time to tear down all the high rise towers. Surveys show ppl don't wanna live in them.

When I was on Homefinder for a council place, highrise flats were the most popular by a distance. (HF tells you where you finished in the queue alongside the total number of bids.)

The quiet little one- and two-bed bungalows were in lower demand (averaging 100-200 bids, maybe), while those flats and all houses attracted several hundred bids each. Those who grew up in Taunton/Bridgwater/Yeovil/wherever mostly wanna stay close to their friends and/or family (transport's terrible here), and bungalows are typically rented by older tenants and surrounded by relative nothingness. Else I'd never have won one after a few years of trying. Yeah — it's community.

Vela wrote:

install sprinklers etc.

I saw a fire-safety inspector on TV earlier saying that sprinklers weren't required by law because they aren't necessary when containment works...

So what Gnoz said makes a lot of sense now.

[Deleted User]

Latest is 27 blocks have failed safety tests.
4 towers in Camden have already been evacuated.
Those 4 towers made up 700 homes.

Assuming all the Camden towers are average size and that other blocks will need evacuating that could be 5000 homes total.
Average 2.5 people per home (minimum) means 15,000 people to temporarily home.

MattyJ

It's Pride here in Toronto and the PM Justin T...however it's spelled, is walking at the front of the parade with a rainbow flag painted on his cheek. Walking with his family. Amazing

Yossarian

He does love a good photo op.

dynamiteReady

Liveinadive wrote:

Latest is 27 blocks have failed safety tests. 4 towers in Camden have already been evacuated. Those 4 towers made up 700 homes. Assuming all the Camden towers are average size and that other blocks will need evacuating that could be 5000 homes total. Average 2.5 people per home (minimum) means 15,000 people to temporarily home.

And Gavin Barwell still hasn't answered one question about the whole issue, has he?

It's fucking tragic.

HawBawJaws

Heard something on the news this morning, apparently 60 blocks have failed the fire safety test.

All of a sudden? Either the tests weren't getting done previously, or they were being done, but whoever did them was lying. The safety standard hasn't suddenly changed, has it?

Unlikely

Tests ordered in the wake of the fire. Despite May claiming they could test 100 samples every day, they've achieved a total of 60 tests. Waffling tory prick on R4 this morning just repeatedly said "er" then "let me be clear, Sarah" before completely failing to provide any kind of clarity as to this evident contradiction.

[Deleted User]

Been watching lots of Yes, Minister with the missus recently. They say "let me be clear" a lot in that show.

dynamiteReady

Getting a little worried about how the assessment of the accident is being handled now:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/23/why-the-grenfell-tower-official-death-toll-has-risen-so-slowly

Lilly Allen's tweet could well be true.

hunk

hunk wrote:

Some elementary reasoning here with some general assumptions: assuming there's about 8 appartments with an average of 3 residents spread over 24 floors that's approximately 8×3×24=576 residents. Not far off from her estimate. I may be wrong but a building that size? If you take an average of 2 people per appartment: 8×2×24=384. Quite a bit lower and closer to my initial estimate of 350 residents. So current official figures courtesy of the Guardian: 30 dead 70 missing 24 wounded 124 total That's a lot of missing people.

Estimated deathtoll is in the 100's.
They're keeping a lid on it to prevent rioting obviously which is why the government is sticking to dead identified = deathtoll

Yossarian

Isn't the death toll in things like this pretty much always the dead identified? What other figure should they give seeing as they have no idea how many people were in the flats?

Giving a figure for identified deaths plus number of missing seems to be the only way to do this.

hunk

Hmm, was assuming deathtoll = dead identified + dead unidentified.
I could be wrong though as many of the remains are just ash and hard /near impossible to identify.

Yossarian

I'm sure that eventually they'll get to that as a death toll, but it's going to take time to get there, especially in a situation like this.

[Deleted User]

Death toll will be identified officially, through next of kin, DNA, dental etc.

The nature of this means bodies aren't really a thing at this stage. The fire melted washing machines!
It will take a long time to identify the dead and the longer it goes on the more difficult it will be. We will likely never know the full number.

At some point I suspect there will be a number released that will remain approximate forever.

One of the big problems is no one knows how many were in the building, unlike something like a plane crash which has a register of passengers on board. Nor do they have a morgue of bodies like something like Hillsborough.

Something further complicating matters is the amount of illegal immigrants that are suggested to have perhaps been inside. The police have an amnesty on people coming forward but that only helps for those known to a survivor who is brave enough to put themselves forward.

tin_robot

We'll never know how many people died in the fire. Though with 24 floors, and 6 flats on each, it's not unreasonable to assume it's a higher number than the one that's been presented.

On a slightly happier note, I discovered (almost too late) that there's currently an auction going on to raise money for victims of the fire. Various authors are offering stuff in exchange for the highest bid. I noticed there was one to have your name in the latest Philip Pullman novel so thought I'd have a quick look. Then realised something very odd was going on with the bidding. Instead of people bidding for the item, they were instead adding their bids to a previous one. Having flicked back through (many) pages, I found the original:

Here's the original bid, by James Clements:

"I expect this will go for a lot more (and I hope it does), but here goes: £1500.
If this is still the leading bid on Tuesday, I’d like to call the character Nur Huda el-Wahabi.
The real Nur Huda was an ex-pupil of mine who lived in Grenfell Tower and didn’t make it out of the building that night. A life that was so full of promise has been cut short in the most terrible way. As well as raising some money, this would mean her name would live on. Plus Nur Huda is a pretty cool name for a character.
Please outbid me by lots though- it’s an important cause."

As I say there are pages of people adding more and more to the bid to ensure that her name makes it into the book. Apparently it's raised over £30000 for the one item alone, and Pullman's already confirmed she will be in his next book.

The auction's on until 8pm tonight

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