Anguish and anger in the air
GRENFELL Tower is only two miles down the road from my house in London.
By the time I arrived at 7.30am, the sirens had stopped. The screaming had stopped.
There were no longer people jumping to their deaths to escape the flames, or parents throwing children out of windows in the hope they would be caught.
But the immediate aftermath of the very worst of the inferno was shocking enough in itself.
Fire engine after fire engine snaked through the estate as dazed women in hijabs gathered outside community centres.
Residents were waking up and realising that in the smouldering, black pyre behind us, people were still alive, children and families missing.
The building itself was a horror, just a horror – the flames still rising across London, the embers falling to the streets,
It was unbelievable that this could happen in the capital of Britain, in the 21st century.
People were shocked, but they were angry too. Locals had warned, again and again, that the towers were firetraps. But they were ignored by the council and the building operators.
The grief was palpable among the crowds of people waiting for news, but so too was the fury.
The official advice in the event of a fire was to stay put. People ignored that and their lives were saved.
Tory policing and fire minister Nick Hurd announced a review of safety in tower blocks but that won’t bring back a single life from Grenfell Tower.
There will be an inquiry but many have come to their own conclusion, echoed by Jeremy Corbyn, that cuts were partly to blame.
Many believe this hellfire was a judgment, that Grenfell will become a parable of our times.
This is what austerity costs. This is the price paid when the voices of ordinary people, and the needs of communities, are ignored.