I escaped from the Grenfell Tower fire – but now we face a new trauma Natasha Elcock
t’s when disaster strikes that you need the state the most. On 14 June, we in Grenfell Tower suffered an inferno. I escaped from the 11th floor with my partner and my six-year-old daughter. Over the next few days, as the emergency services continued to dampen the fire and recover our loved ones, we waited for help to come and for the authorities to tell us what to do. But the state didn’t come. Instead, it was volunteers who arrived with food and clothes, and it was they who helped us to find places to stay and search hospitals for our family members. Six months on, little has changed. Four out of five families affected are still waiting for homes. Almost 100 families spent Christmas in hotel rooms, sleeping side by side in shared rooms, what’s left of their belongings stacked in boxes by their beds. Seventy-one of our loved ones died in that fire. They died because we were ignored when we had raised questions about the refurbishment of the tower long beforehand. We are still ...