A “stunned silence” fell over a London Fire Brigade control room as calls from those pleading for help from inside Grenfell Tower cut out, an inquiry has heard.
Angie Gotts, a call handler in the brigade’s office in Stratford, east London, took around 80 calls on the night of the deadly blaze in June last year.
She said in a statement read to the Grenfell Tower inquiry on Monday she felt “useless” as she took 999 calls from those trapped inside the block without an escape route.
They included contact from a father-of-five, who told her flames had burst through the wall of his flat.
“I told him there was nothing I could do and that he was better off with his family,” Ms Gotts wrote.
“I ended the call by saying I would make absolutely sure the crews knew where he was - it was just horrible.”
Hundreds of emergency calls flooded the control room on the night of the fire, prompting other bases around the country to take on some of the workload.
However, once the flurry of activity began to die down and calls stopped coming in, Ms Gotts described the lull in the room as “horrible.”
Referring to the trapped residents who had rung 999, she continued: “You could not help but think that they had all gone.
“Then relatives started calling and asking about family members. They feared the worst and that was why they were ringing.
“The lack of calls made it eerie in the control room. Someone said, 'What does this mean?' but we all know what it meant.”
The experienced call handler said the first images that reached the control room of the fire, which left 72 people dead and hundreds more homeless, reminded her of the September 11 terror attacks in New York.
“I remember thinking it reminded me of 9/11 and all the people who were above where the planes hit and could not get out,” her statement said.
“The atmosphere was one of stunned silence.”
Ms Gotts also recalled a tense exchange she had on the evening of the fire with the tower’s owners, Kensington and Chelsea Council.
She tried and failed three times to contact the authority so a building surveyor could be booked in to assess the damage.
“Eventually I managed to get through and was advised that they could not give an ETA for the surveyor,” her statement said.
“I stressed the importance of someone needing to attend but was again told they could not tell me when someone would be there.
“We even said that they could be collected and driven on blue lights to the scene but still they would not assist nor let me call them directly.”
The council faced heavy criticism over its response to the tragedy.
Ms Gotts' statement ended: “I wish I could have done more to help those people. All we could do was pass on the information.
“A few days later we did a scene visit of the tower which completely shocked me - the height of the building and the damage was overwhelming.”
Additional reporting by PA
