The perils of risk communication in a context of uncertainty: The long dispute over contamination after the Grenfell Tower fire

This article examines the limits of post-disaster risk communication in contexts where scientific uncertainty remains unresolved. Drawing on the case of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, it explores why official assurances about air and soil contamination failed to reassure affected residents. The study uses ethnographic research and document analysis to assess how authorities communicated safety, risk and evidence in the aftermath of the disaster.

In conclusion, the authors call for greater openness to an uncertainty (rather than risk) framing in post-disaster management. Making uncertainty actionable requires ‘technologies of humility’, which can support: (1) acknowledging uncertainty, (2) facilitating deliberative multi-stakeholder risk assessments and (3) implementing the precautionary principle. These practices of recovery aim, more generally, to build community-authority trust and shared problem-solving in the immediate term, and a stronger long-term democratic foundation for responding to the next disruption.