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[Image: A white man in a yellow shirt, standing in a blue apartment]

Part 33 of a series of posts honoring the Grenfell Tower victims.

Steven Power, from the 15th floor of
Grenfell Tower

Steven Power, 63, was an Irishman and a father of five. Reports claimed that after getting his daughter out of the building he refused to leave his dogs behind and died alongside them, although his daughter later said that wasn’t the case:

“Our dad lived in that block for so long that he would have experienced more than one fire there. I don’t know if that was why he was reluctant to leave that night and unfortunately we will never know.

I do know that my dad wasn’t in the tower when the fire started, but he came back to wake me up out of my sleep.

“Some of the news reports state that my dad didn’t want to leave because of his dogs, but this is not true.”

There was no doubt he loved his dogs, however. “Some people are famous in a block for loving their dogs,’ a Grenfell neighbour told LRB.
“There was this guy on the 15th floor, Steven Power, he had two bull terriers, you know those dogs? Loved them, he did. Would’ve died for those two dogs.”

Steve was a retired lorry driver who loved fishing and DJing. His daughter Sherrie described him as “nothing short of a character… he left some sort of impression on everyone.”

His ex-partner Claudia Davies spoke about him at the Grenfell inquiry:

“He had this twinkle in his eyes. He could just smile at me and I’d crumble. He was clever, too. He was always a quick thinker, one step ahead of everyone else in the room – able to crack a joke to wind someone up and start everyone laughing. He never lost that charm.”

After her speech, she turned to the chair of the inquiry,
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, and said, “Sir Martin, You do right by us all, and you
do right by my children.”

–

Sources

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald/20180526/281883004010435

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2018/may/14/lives-of-grenfell-tower-victims-fire

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n11/andrew-ohagan/the-tower#group-iii-the-aftermath-NQAWtqUlLp

http://www.itv.com/news/2018-05-21/the-victims-of-grenfell-tower/