Understanding systemic change by looking at the Grenfell Tower

Gill Kernick saw the Grenfell Tower burn in 2017 from the Trellick Tower. After her return to the UK in 2011, she and her husband had lived on the 21st floor or Grenfell for three years. Some of the 72 people who died in the fire had been her neighbours. She has also worked internationally as a consultant specialising in recovery from disaster. Her book Catastrophe and Systemic Change seeks to learn the lessons from Grenfell about preventing catastrophes. It is a substantially revised version of an earlier edition that is now able to draw on the 1,700 pages and seven volumes of the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry, which was released in September 2024. (Photo: Andrew Curry. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) The book isn’t just about Grenfell. It draws on a wide range of disasters, including, for example, Challenger, Chernobyl, Hillsborough, Boeing’s 737 Max crashes, and the Post Office Horizon software scandal. And, intriguingly, also the great Fire of London in 1666. Deaths foretold But Gill Kernick…