Lethal advice stranded tenants in f lats
DOZENS of victims are feared to have died after being ordered to stay inside Grenfell Tower as the inferno tore through the building.
Terrified residents dialling 999 were instructed to stay where they were rather than risking the heat and fumes.
Emergency workers said they should use wet blankets at the bottom of their front door to stop smoke getting inside.
Incredibly, police and fire officials used a megaphone to tell residents to stay inside after 100 people rushed outside as the fire took hold. One resident branded them ‘headless chickens’, saying that within 20 minutes they were instead telling residents to get out. For many, it was too late.
Francis Dean, 47, said his sister Zainab told him by telephone that she had been instructed to remain in her 14th-floor flat with her three-year-old son Jeremiah.
‘My sister called me to say there was a fire in the tower. I told her to leave by the stairs, but she said she had been told to stay inside her flat. That was in the early hours of today and I’ve not heard from her since. I fear the worst.’ Grenfell Tower had an official ‘stay put’ policy telling residents to blockade themselves inside flats and wait to be rescued.
Warning signs insisted they ‘should initially be safe’ in the event of a fire if they closed doors and windows.
Just three months ago furious members of Grenfell Action Group attacked the pitiful fire escape plans. They said that despite a series of worrying power surges and a recent fire at a nearby tower, residents had not received ‘proper’ safety instructions.
‘There are not and never have been any instructions posted on the Grenfell Tower noticeboard or on individual floors as to how residents should act in the event of a fire,’ they said. An image of one poster posted online showed how residents were told: ‘There is a “stay put” policy… unless the fire is in or affecting your flat’.
Graphic designer James Wood, 32, said that when the fire started police and fire officers told people to stay in their flats.
‘The fire service and the police were like headless chickens and people were told to stay in their flats – at one stage a megaphone was used.
‘But 20 minutes later the fire had become so fierce they were telling people to get out but by that time it was too late and they were trapped and screaming from the windows. I will never forget the sound of children screaming, and people were jumping from the building. It was like 9/11.’
Last night, Fay Edwards, chairman of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, insisted ‘people were safer standing in their flats’. She added: ‘I think it would be sensible because I don’t know how dangerous flats might be for people coming down. Also, then (police) know where people are if they stay in their flats.’
Dismissing concerns of negligence, Mrs Edwards added: ‘Everything has to be inspected and the building is inspected by the fire department regularly, especially since the small fire we had at another building recently.’