If I remember correctly, the police failed to arrive quickly because he bombed a government building in central Oslo. When they did arrive to the general area, they found out that the amount of equipment they had to bring with them caused them to exceed the weight limit of the boat they used which in turn flooded the engine with water. To add to the series of unfortunate events and general incompetence, they were forced to travel 3.6 km to the island instead of the planned 600m, adding delays to their arrival.
I remember the days after the attacks as I couldn’t attend school due to many of the teachers losing their children at Utøya. Many of the teachers I had resigned as they couldn’t bear the weight of lost family.
It still messes with me even though I was 6 or 7 when this happened, and wasn’t directly affected. I can’t think of how much pain those parents had to have endured