The June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire disaster as a cascading disaster

1. David Alexander
University College London
GRENFELL:
CONTROLLED ANGER

2. Grenfell Tower, Royal Borough
of Kensington & Chelsea
• 24 storeys
• built 1972-74
• renovated 2012-2016
• clad in Arconic Reynobond and
Reynolux aluminium sheeting
• caught fire 14 June 2017
• burned for 24-72 hours
• 72 dead, 400 homeless
• 30 families still homeless now.
Ronan Point,
London
May 1968
4 dead,
17 injured

6. The Grenfell Tower disaster abruptly revealed
an entire new riskscape of dangerous
residential buildings with people living in them.
In reality it had been there all the time and warnings
(especially from coroners after lethal high-rise fires)
had been roundly ignored.

7. How could this happen
in the richest local authority of one
of the world's wealthiest countries?
after 130 years of experience
with high-rise building design?

8. Direct causes:
practical problems
contributing to disaster
Long-term causes
(dynamic pressures):
predisposition for disaster
Root causes:
motivating and
underlying factors
Local
cascading
effects
National
cascading
effects
International
cascading
effects
Escalation
factors

9. Some direct causes of the disaster:-
(1) combustible cladding
(2) dangerous gas and electricity connections
(3) no sprinkler system
(4) faulty alarms, poor egress.

10. Some more direct causes of the disaster:-
(5) "stay put and wait to be rescued" advice from fire fighters
(6) in the renovations, the local authority
skimped on public safety to save money
(7) local authority & management team didn't listen to warnings
(8) local authority failed utterly to manage the disaster.

11. Some long-term causes of the disaster:-
(1) decimation of the building regulations
(2) abandonment of the independent inspection regime
(3) poorly supervised privatisation of tenant management system
(4) fiscal deprivation (austerity policies)
(5) political ideology.

12. Root causes:-
(1) investment properties: empty houses, homeless people
(2) growing social inequality
(3) government indifference to public safety
(4) government priorities are elsewhere
(5) transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

13. Local cascading effects (dealing with the riskscape):-
(1) lasting social and psychological impacts upon the survivors
(2) the pain and elitism of the (riotously expensive) official enquiry
(3) the legal battle is stacked against the survivors
(4) panic evacuations in Camden Borough, London.

14. More local cascading effects (dealing with the riskscape):-
(5) the plight of disabled people
(6) massive apartment block fires continue (Barking, June 2019)
(7) culpability issues (and their negation)
(8) the hidden fire dangers of modern buildings in London.

15. Barking, London, 8 June 2019 15:30hrs
20 apartments destroyed

16. National cascading effects (dealing with the riskscape):-
(1) 300-500 inhabited tower blocks found to be death traps
(2) 24-hr fire marshals have to be hired
(3) arguments over who pays for recladding
(4) apartments suddenly lose most of their value, cannot be sold
(5) battles over the results of building research
(6) proliferation of litigation.

17. There are international cascading effects.

18. North Greenwich, London
Developers destroy
ecological corridors,
riverbed ecological
system, local community
spirit, create residential
flood risk. They win prizes
for plans and then
abandon the plans.
Opposition utilises
reasoned arguments
delivered with
CONTROLLED ANGER.

19. GRAZIE PER LA VOSTRA ATTENZIONE!
david.alexander@ucl.ac.uk
emergency-planning.blogspot.com
slideshare.net/dealexander