(no subject)

[jhetley]

How in hell can a building housing that many people be built with a single exit stair?

Comments

[green_knight]

II have no idea. (There are three other towers with the same building plan right next to it.)

But we are getting an idea how such a building could be clad in flammable material, not have fire doors or sprinklers installed, and it's a pileup of cost-saving measures and simply not caring about residents.

It's the sort of thing that drives home the point that 'abstaining from politics' just means that the bad guys get to ride roughshod all over you.


I have no idea whether this could be fixed for the other blocks. This is taking place against a background where the council would like the tenants in these blocks to be gone from the borough, which just raises the stakes.

[jhetley]

The cladding aside (as a retrofit), that basic floor plan would be illegal where I practice architecture.

[hairmonger]

I was What?!?!?
My father was in the Coast Guard Reserve for thirty years, and took an active duty course with the New York Fire College in 1955. I grew up always looking for a second exit as soon as I entered a building and playing Spot the Fire Extinguisher. After two days I'm still finding my jaw hanging loose in amazement.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[wolfette]

I doubt there were any fire extinguishers in Grenfell Tower.

[hairmonger]

Not provided by the management, certainly! Maybe in a few people's kitchens.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[rhoste]

Here too. My building has two stairways, one at either end of the building. And all the apartments and fire alarms get checked annually by the fire department. This horrow is an absolute disgrace.

[conuly]

Because nobody cared.

[wolfette]

my office building was built at the same period, but as an athletes' hotel for the Commonwealth Games, has fire escape stairs at each corner, as well as the central (supposedly fireproof) stairwell ... but when I stayed with my grandparents in Glasgow in a council flat on the 13th floor of a 20 storey building, there was one central stairwell and two lifts (elevators) that were often out of order.