SlipperyFishes
Banned
Probably very dangerous to go in. Parts of that building could collapse at any time.
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Massive Fire in High Rise Apartment in London
- Thread starter superdeluxe
- Start date
Castef
Banned
That's for avoiding adding MORE bodies.
Well, to be fair, they're right. Bad roll of the dice that they had a big investment slashed in value through no fault of their own, and have a right to complain (why their flat and not another?) Too bad though. Their suffering is nothing compared to the victims.
Or James Bond can show up in an invisible car and then fly in with his jet pack.
GHG
Member
Yep. I think they want to to blow over a bit more before stating any further numbers.
They couldn't afford that. Budget cuts and all that.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Well, drones aren't actually in the budget for most fire services yet, so they'd actually have to go out and acquisition them for that purpose. Which then means going through a process of figuring out what to get; do they grab something that could be of long term use to them, or something cheap but functional for their current needs? How do they ensure the drones will actually remain responsive up to the distances required, on such short notice?
It's doable, but is enough of a headache of a process, plus ultimately misinterpretation of the footage (especially if they got lower quality cameras) could create false positives on the body count. They're going to do this the slowest, safest, and most verifiable way they can - firefighters climbing floor by floor to recover corpses, and counting them as they go.
Theonik
Member
Too bad. All investments have risk. Don't see people crying over those poor tobacco companies anymore. People like to point out all investments carry risk whenever they want to justify their gains but never when that risk leads to losses.
Maybe you're just taking the piss, but there are plenty of search and rescue drones in deployment out there. It's not exactly new or outlandish.
I have no idea on what branches of government are involved at this stage but I'd be surprised if they don't have access to such machines.
JonnyDBrit
Member
So since this has made me curious, I actually looked it up...
So, a drone is in use at Grenfell Tower... on loan from Kent Fire & Rescue.
https://twitter.com/LondonFire/status/875446572879716353
So, a drone is in use at Grenfell Tower... on loan from Kent Fire & Rescue.
https://twitter.com/LondonFire/status/875446572879716353
But.. bu.. James Bond...
So, this is terrifying.
Grenfell Tower: Similar cladding used in around 600 high rises
More from political Twitter
In summary: We have potentially thousands of people living in deathtraps like Grenfell, and councils the length and breadth of the country are culpable for cladding these places using material which has been deemed unsafe and illegal for use on high-rise buildings.
I don't know how the people living in the potentially affected places are coping to be honest. This is a national disgrace and the Grenfell enquiry (or inquest, or whatever it ends up being) needs to examine the full scope of this wide-scale neglect.
Grenfell Tower: Similar cladding used in around 600 high rises
More from political Twitter
In summary: We have potentially thousands of people living in deathtraps like Grenfell, and councils the length and breadth of the country are culpable for cladding these places using material which has been deemed unsafe and illegal for use on high-rise buildings.
I don't know how the people living in the potentially affected places are coping to be honest. This is a national disgrace and the Grenfell enquiry (or inquest, or whatever it ends up being) needs to examine the full scope of this wide-scale neglect.
Lol...
This is right down the road from me. To think that there are burned dead bodies just there in the building....its just crazy. Such a horrid situation honestly.
Theonik
Member
So... Why are we trusting the councils to provide samples?
JonnyDBrit
Member
...So there's basically a high rise at a similar risk to Grenfell Tower, for each resident that was in Grenfell Tower.
Summer Haze
Banned
My sister has recently moved into a high-rise with her 2 year old daughter. Top floor too...
BBC News: Seven tower blocks in four areas shown to have combustible cladding, No 10 says, as tests on 600 buildings go on
Imagine being a resident in one of those seven towers now. Especially in this heat.
Imagine being a resident in one of those seven towers now. Especially in this heat.
frankie_baby
Member
The companies that did grenfell put flammable cladding on towers in Camden instead of the stuff they were supposed too
If it's one of the towers near me they are fucked, their sprinklers and fire alarms don't work. None of the old towers near me have sprinklers or working sprinklers.
Deaf Spacker
Memb
They are going to be eviscerated in court.
I'm going to reinforce this: fuck their feelings because people burned in a rocket of a building for hours calling their families to say goodbye and breathing in smoke, for the "crime" of being poor in London.
Second, inherent in the understanding of 'investment' is the risk of loss. It's really inappropriate (absurd really) to act like real estate is always a safe investment that deserves to be protected by the state at all costs. That's just not true. What if London or New York or another global city suffers from a new pattern of flight over unaffordability, poor infrastructure or the effects of rioting or a new recession? What if the city goes "insolvent" or the appropriate equivalent in the U.K.? What if the sea takes your home?
It's fallacious to think that these investors in homes will always be able to keep the profit while socializing the risk.
I think you are overestimating how much of the bodies are left and how easy it is to see stuff using these.
frankie_baby
Member
They're also gonna be bankrupted which on the one hand is great but on the other who the fuck is gonna pay
As are all the people who inspected and signed off on this shit.
Hmm, drone fans over dust, Ash and partially cremated remains what could go wrong?
JonnyDBrit
Member
To clarify this a little, the drone is apparently being used primarily to observe structural damage. So I imagine in that regard that means having it fly around and measure from outside, maybe hovering each to check out standing structures, rather than fly throughout the building counting bodies on the floor.
I was thinking about how terrorists could take advantage of this. Identify a building with similar problems, sneak in, identify a good place to set a fire and do so in the middle of the night.
Hell, if we wanted to turn it into the plot of a bad movie, he could actually move in the building, bringing in bomb materials in the furniture (no one would look twice), and then build it right then and there. Then kill someone your height and gender, file down their teeth to match yours...
I'm not suggesting they should fly inside with it. S&R drones tend to be much larger and may have trouble fitting in narrow spaces.
Everybody getting very hung up on the cladding, but there is vastly more to how the fire spread than this; the cladding appears to have been the obvious means for the fire to travel up the facade, but if the building is properly compartmented as it ought to be, then that shouldn't matter too much. Each flat ought to be giving at least an hour fire resistance, each flat should be containing any fire within; the fire tore through the entire building, so there are serious questions about the fire stops and fire breaks in the main structure and the cladding, the non existent fire alarm, the extract ventilation, the number of escape stairs and capacity, the 'stay in your flat' advice, the potential ruptured gas main in an escape stairwell etc etc...
Just having this type of cladding does not instantly mean a building is a deathtrap,there are many other factors at play here.
Just having this type of cladding does not instantly mean a building is a deathtrap,there are many other factors at play here.
Again though, some of these bodies are going to have next to nothing left. Some bodies may never be identified, primarily because there is so little left to identify. In those sort of situations a drone isn't exactly foolproof in even being used to spot them.
True but the flats were all connected to the cladding which would light them all up at nearly the same time. Only the area with the stairwell would be compartmentalized and if any of the 120 flats was "leaking"...
Every flat ought to be it's own self contained fire break, but I do agree. It's this 'leaking' thats a huge issue, the apparent total failure of the compartmentation. I do wonder at the quality of construction during the refurbishment, how much was skipped or missed, how many corners cut; how much value engineering and poor management killed all those people.
The number is now up to Eleven, plus Three Premier Inn hotels.
As usual, it takes a massive tragedy to finally bring to light years of neglect and shoddy practices. And people dare, they fucking dare, to complain about "Health and Safety".
jellies_two
Member
Since the cladding transmits the fire into every flat via the windows i am not sure what you are saying about compartmentalising. The fire ripped vertically then spread horizontally over a longer period.
There were lots of other issues however with two sides of the building quickly burning into half the apartments the smoke would do the rest of the work to trap people until the cladding fire worked its way around.
IIRC the government have only said about checking council owned blocks, private ones are up to the landlord
I live in a private block that has cladding and the building residents are all shitting themselves over it, and so far the only thing the landlords have done is send a notice to each resident repeating the fire process - including the policy to stay in your flat if there is a fire
After hearing about the people who were told not to leave their flat in Grenfell, and then never came out, there is no way I would be following that advice if a fire did start
SuperBowser
Member
I'm not an expert, but I think that advice would have been okay if the fire services were able to contain the fire. I assume the risk of smoke inhalation is normally greater than your building burning down if you are in a "safe" part of it.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Premier Inn cementing their trash tier status.
This is why I'm happy Airbnb has blown up, I'd much rather stay in someone's home than a hotel. It's usually cheaper, the hosts are usually more attentive, it's generally much cleaner and you get some cool little treats. Like the last one we stayed in near the Lake District, the host (sweetest lady) cooked fresh biscuits everyday. The smell was amazing and she'd always leave a few on a little coffee table she'd put aside for Airbnb guests.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of people renting their accommodation on airbnb aren't ensuring it is up to code.
Miles Quaritch
Member
It's their home, so while it won't be up to the strictest of code, it'll at least be well maintained and not be a fire-trap.
Did you read the article? Premiere Inn getting singled out speaks to the company's favor, not the opposite. Basically, the media knows that three of their hotels may have unsafe cladding only because their corporate office was unusually proactive in answering media inquiries.
Theonik
Member
And will subsequently take remedial actions. Many other companies might not bother.
frankie_baby
Member
Airbnb is doing a massive number on the residential property market in London, probably causing as much damage as the russian oligarchs with their empty flats
Sadly all it would take is one of the people on the lower floors to leave their door open when they evacuate to screw all the other people above over. We're there 2 stair cases or just one?
Theonik
Member
Fire doors should slam shut and contain fire and smoke for a timeframe. That means that the fire would at worst case be contained in 1 floor. The tower block in question only had 1 escape staircase that probably was not positively pressurised.
frankie_baby
Member
Police now also considering manslaughter charges.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-fire-police-considering-manslaughter-charges
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-fire-police-considering-manslaughter-charges
Until the owners confirm that the cladding on our building isn't flammable then I won't be taking any chances tbh
But yeah, it sounds like the Firemen gave that advice on the basis that the cladding was safe in the first place, which by all accounts it should have been - there is no blame on them in this situation
Yeah. Airbnb solve a problem for tourists with reasonable prices for holiday accommodation, but local residents are the ones paying for it. Its been discussed quite a lot how priperty prices in Barcelona and NYC have become really fucked up for locals because of Airbnb.
IIRC it also means cities get less tax income as the people on it generally aren't paying the same taxes as a hotel would have to
Not that my heart bleeds for the hotel industry, but Airbnb is definitely not something that should be championed
Just because someone is paid less than you doesn't mean they don't work hard. Get to fuck. This attitude that those in social housing must live in the worst possible conditions because they didn't "earn" anything nice is what led to this tragedy in the first place
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