Red Cross Blogs

Crisis in Camberwell

By Mark Cox
July 10, 2009 at 3:21 pm

Last Friday at about four thirty in the afternoon, I suspect many of you were twiddling your thumbs at work, mentally planning your weekend and savouring the thought of that first sip of wine / beer / freshly pressed guava juice (delete as appropriate).

Unless you happened to be a Red Cross volunteer, that is. Around that time last Friday, 22 emergency response volunteers and staff members were called out to a serious tower block fire in Camberwell, South London.

As the flames spread rapidly and emergency services tried to control the blaze, the Red Cross team set up a rest centre at a local church and set about looking after 90 evacuated – and very traumatised – residents.

Inevitably, the tragic death of three children and three adults during the blaze catapulted the story into the main news headlines and gripped the country for the weekend. And all the while, our volunteers were in the thick of it – largely unheralded and unsung – helping the evacuees during their darkest hours.

Marcus Stephan, one of those present, told me: “People were very distraught and worried about loved ones. But this is what we train for and this is what we do. When we saw people in such dreadful conditions, we were there for them.”

No one ever said being a Red Cross volunteer would be an easy ride, but I can’t imagine that any other group of people found a more worthwhile way to spend their time last weekend.

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Tags: emergency response, emergency services, evacuees, fire, First aid, rest centre

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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