The great debate over the future of the Grenfell tower

telegraph.co.uk:

Grenfell Tower is burning, she told him. The tower block was a stone’s throw from their flat, dominating their view of the west London skyline.

O’Connell stepped on to their balcony and saw flames licking up the outside of the building. He could hear helicopters circling overhead, the sound of screams.Feeling nauseous, he went down to the garden he shared with neighbours and looked up.

Above him, desperate Grenfell families were trapped in their flats. At one window he saw a mother with two children. In another flat, someone had smashed a window, presumably to allow in air, and net curtains billowed in the wind.

Others were pleading for help; he heard voices screaming floor numbers into the sky. O’Connell and his neighbours shouted back. ‘Don’t worry,’ he called. ‘The fire brigade is coming.’It would be 60 hours before the blaze was fully extinguished – 72 people died as a result of the fire.In the weeks that followed, Lancaster West Estate, upon which the tower is located, and where O’Connell has lived since 2013, buzzed with activity.