Even as we pray for those involved in the disaster, the horrific blaze and loss of life and property at Grenfell Tower in West London will raise many questions. Fire safety, fire escapes and the flammability of construction materials will be among them.
Public safety is duty of government
Jeremy Corbyn has immediately pointed the finger at Government ministers. He is right to do so.
The Bible makes clear that public safety from men of violence is the first duty of the state. The Apostle Peter lays this out clearly:
1Peter 2:14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
Meanwhile, the Apostle Paul says that is why we pay taxes:
Romans 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. … 6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
Law given to Moses contains building control
But public safety does not end there. The law-books of Moses contain building regulations. These may be little known. Nevertheless, they came from the mouth of God and are universally applicable. One of them in particular has public safety in construction very much in mind:
Deuteronomy 22:8 When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
Flat roofs are notorious for danger at the edge. The continuation of the wall past the roof for a distance of around three feet provides safety. We can take out from this that any building must be safe. Moreover, this is not a mere personal duty. The use of the singular shows it applies to the whole nation. The judges would take to task anyone who cut corners.
In any event, if a building fell and killed or injured people or property, the general rules of equity would kick in and restituion would be made. In the event of a death, that restitution would be made with the life of someone culpable. That is clear from the scripture.
Grenfell Tower refurb met regulations
Last year a building firm completed a two-year £10m refurbishment. Rydon Construction replaced windows and put in a communal heating system. Crucially, they installed new exterior cladding. The insulation in this instance may turn out to have been inflammable. Astonishingly, many modern rigid foam insulation products can catch and spread, as this report graphically shows. They include the popular polystyrene, polyurethane and polyisocyanurate. The latter, with the brand name of ‘Celotex’ was used on Grenfell Tower. Only last year, safety experts warned the Government about cladding buildings in plastic foam like Celotex. And it has emerged that a fire-resistant version of the cladding would have cost just £5,000 more at Grenfell Tower. Just how ‘fire-resistant’ it is has not been revealed. Many materials take a while to catch fire, but once they do the effect is terrifying.
According to the BBC, the firm said it was “shocked to hear of the devastating fire”. They said the work “met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards”.
If that is true, and local Building Control must have signed the work off, then the regulations must be looked at again.
But be very sure. This is not a matter where the government may legitimately blame some agency. If these is avoidable loss of life in the realm, ministers must shoulder the blame.
The video in the technical report “l’incendie de Roubaix filmé par un voisin” is truly shocking in the speed in which the fire spreads vertically in the tower block, despite the efforts of the Fire Brigade. In London this was shortly followed by travel of the fire horizontally across the building, possibly by means of the contiguous cladding. I suspect that fire safety may have been severely compromised in order to improve the building’s insulation, without the higher cost of using totally non-inflammable materials. How short-sighted this may prove to have been. Considerable moral integrity is required not to compromise safety in such circumstances in the corporate world, where the bottom line rules all. We need to beware. Time will tell, but something must have been terribly wrong at Grenfell Tower, and doubtless needs addressing elsewhere too.
The various fire regulations for new buildings do not demand fire proof materials. They simply require materials to be fire resistant for a specified period, usually 30 minutes. In one house in which I was involved, the Inspector, after checking the ceiling construction, simply asked for an extra coat of emulsion to be applied to the ceiling!!!! In theory, that might slightly delay a heat breakthrough, but once that barrier was breached it would add to the intensity of the blaze.
But building safety is not just a modern problem. See Jesus’ reference to the Tower of Siloam. The tower of Pisa started to lean before it was finished, but they still kept adding levels to it. Politicians and councillors are rarely motivated by the Bible in spit of many statements to the contrary. Have a look at Tony Blair’s relative statements whilst in power. In the vast majority of cases their “god” is power or money
Even so, with good maintenance the Tower of Pisa has been very successful in bringing people to Pisa, and has still not fallen down.
Siloam is interesting. In Thornton Wilder’s famous book
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridge-Penguin-Modern-Classics-Thornton-x/dp/B00C6OOJ0A/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1497958794&sr=8-3&keywords=bridge+san+luis+rey
the author manages to trace in surprising detail* the lives of the people who died in the San Luis Rey bridge disaster in 1714, trying to find some reason why they might have been on the bridge to die when it collapsed. Jesus seems to think it is completely obvious that there would be no reason at all (Luke 13:4). This passage is seldom quoted, but it answers a great many similar questions which come up from time to time. Some hold that people dying in various disasters were particularly sinful and were being punished for this, but apparently not, if we are to believe Jesus himself.
* When I wrote that, I still believed what I was taught at school, that the bridge disaster and Wilder’s researches were real. In fact, Wikipedia reveals that the whole thing was a prize-winning fiction dreamed up in 1927 .
To be fair to politicians, “their god is money” often equates to “they are doing their best to avoid raising taxes”. Some of us would be pleased to pay more tax to make social provisions more lavish, but many wouldn’t.
A lot of the old churches which have a low tower but no steeple used to have a steeple.
yes, as in, “Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple, Open the door and see all the people.”?