LONDON: Emma Louise O’Connor can no longer hear a fire truck’s siren without freezing up with fright after living through Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II. Seven years since London’s Grenfell tower went up in flames, the 35-year-old told AFP she is still struggling to recover from the trauma, demanding justice for the victims of the disaster that killed 72 people.

A first report by a public inquiry into the 2017 tragedy laid the bulk of the blame for the fire’s rapid spread across the building on its highly flammable cladding. While the tower was located in the capital’s affluent area of Kensington and Chelsea, most of its inhabitants were on low incomes.

With the inquiry preparing to publish its final report on Wednesday, O’Connor remembers all too well how quickly events — and the flames — overtook her. “I ordered a delicious curry and my partner ordered pizza,” she said. “We didn’t even think that would be our last takeaway at our home.”

Once in bed in her room on the flat’s 20th floor, she remembered hearing the first two fire engines pull up outside. Two more swiftly followed, before a fire alarm started blaring on a floor below. An avid watcher of a television drama about members of the London Fire Brigade, O’Connor was initially curious about why they were there.

So, she and her partner decided to leave the tower, despite the advice at the time being to wait inside to be rescued — a decision which most likely saved their lives. During the inquiry, O’Connor was confronted with surveillance camera footage of her “ridiculously smiling” as she descended the stairs. “I was excited,” she said. “But then I got down to the ground floor ... my facial expression, it was like: ‘Okay, now something is quite seriously wrong.’” The couple had to duck under the flames to flee. Once sat down nearby, they then watched on as the building they once called home burnt to a husk. “And then I went into shock.”

‘Survivor’s guilt’

The couple was eventually rehoused in another flat in Kensington, less than a kilometer from the tower. But far from being a safe haven, her new flat made her trauma “a lot worse”. O’Connor, who says she has autism, arthritis-inflicted mobility issues and post-traumatic stress disorder, placed the blame on the many fire stations in the vicinity.

Every time a fire truck leaves on a call-out, she has to endure the siren’s shriek. On one occasion, she narrowly avoided being run over while she stood fixed to the spot in the middle of the road. 

Bitter with the administrations that have come and gone since the fire, she said she expects the cladding manufacturers who prioritized profit over safety to be punished. Even today, seven years on, she struggles to attend commemorations for those who died in the fire. “I have so much survivor’s guilt that every time the names (of the victims) are read, it’s like my name should be there,” she said. “But now I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re here for a purpose and that purpose is to make sure that everyone’s homes is safe for them.” — AFP