It was a sweltering Saturday in London and the anger hung in the air like the heat. On June 17, 2017, hundreds of people gathered at the police cordons in the public housing project of Lancaster West Estate to _(11)__ and voice their concerns. Above them loomed the remains of Grenfell Tower, a 24-story apartment building that had housed up to 600 people before a fire ravaged it on June 14, killing at least 79 people by police estimates.
      Harrowing details about the tragedy were commonplace. Locals were bewildered and_(12)__ at how this could happen in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has one of the wealthiest populations in the U.K. and is only minutes away from the fancy mansions familiar from the movie Notting Hill.
      In the days since the fire, Grenfell Tower has been held up as tragic symbol of the social ills facing Britain. The U.K. has seen the biggest drop in average real wages in OECD countries except for Greece. The disparity between rich and poor is especially visible in places like Kensington, _(13)_ the average house costs 38.5 times the average annual salary in the U.K. A failure to create robust home-building programs in an era of rising socioeconomic insecurity risks _(14)__London's capacity to grow—and increases the polarization of a growing class of people who feel ignored, undervalued, and angered by their dispossession.
11.
(A) pass the buck
(B) take the wheel
(C) pay their respects
(D) take the edge off