Design Project 2 | Interview #2: Franck Amato

Journal Entry For
Project 2 - Interviews

Franck Amato, French Intelligence Officer, Crisis Response

  • What does food look like after a disaster?
    • “Food and water are essential after a disaster.”
    • Food: You can avoid eating for days/weeks if environment is okay
      • Nutritional requirements
        • Adult needs 2000-3000 calories/day
        • Woman needs 1600-2400 calories/day
        • Child: 1000-2000 calories/day
    • Water: Human can last 24-48 hours without water until serious health issues or death
      • FEMA & Red Cross specify 1 gallon needed per person, per day, in total
      • Typically 25% of water consumption comes from drinks or food, fruits
      • Drinking requirements
        • Adult male: 15 cups
        • Adult female: 10 cups
        • Child: 6-8 cups
      • Weather can influence need i.e. Arizona summer vs San Francisco winter
      • Need to have water stored in case of disaster
        • Earthquakes can damage tap water lines; water could run but be undrinkable
        • Creates requirement to filter and sanitize water
    • Best to prepare in advance
      • Disasters, such as floods, would destroy some stocks of food/water, prevent companies from producing, sell, transporting
      • People rely on what they’ve stored and what rescue teams, NGO’s, and public orgs provide
      • Logistics and supply chains disrupted
    • Best ways to store food and water
      • Nonperishable foods on higher shelves to keep safe in case of flood
      • Store food in dry environments, away from reach of pets
      • Don’t expose to high temp
      • Freezer should be kept >3/4 full of food. If there is remaining space, fill with cold packs or containers with water, such as a gallon of water. Frozen mass keeps cold longer.
      • Lowest part of fridge contains dairy, meat, eggs.
      • Uncut veggies are less sensitive to temps.
      • After 2-3 days, need to consider throwing stuff out. Can be longer for pasteurized or unopened milk.
  • What do people eat after disasters?
    • Times have changed; during times of local agriculture: people usually stocked for the winter, i.e. grandmas had stocked pantries
    • Now, when supply chains are disrupted, they will rely on rescue teams
    • Shelter food water
    • Need a place where you can
  • Where do people usually eat?
    • Need org to bring from warehouse to distribute
    • Bring the food to the right place,
    • Distribution hub, to other areas
    • Need security because after few days are hungry people very quickly face violence
    • Africa and other violence during distribution.
    • Covid - people bought what they could not what they needed
  • Not just having food but fear of not having food the day after
    • Distribute equally
    • Identify families with kids
    • If need to produce, need to find source of water, and way to filter it, distribute it.

  • What aspects of a building would be helpful to recover from a disaster?
    • Water filling stations
      • Use tap water and organize a distribution
      • Faucet. People come with empty containers.
    • Communication platform in advance. Even without mobile network. Speakers. Point of contact.
      • Point of contact, assess commuunity needs next day
  • What role does food play in community building?
    • Following hours, reflex to help each other
    • 1+ days once feel need/fear, avoid competition and violence
    • Totally addicted to info, Misinfo/disinfo is risk
    • Organize local communities, into people are active
    • People cannot go to work

Have them active, feeling of purpose, service. Positive

Distribute food, rarely can only rely on rescue team and volunteer

Need to rely on local community

Keep peace within local community

Helps people and rescue team

CERT program

Training to prepare before

  • If there were a structure that could help re build a community after a disaster, what aspects would it have?

Identify places to build this in advance.

Community that want to serve.

Work with them on preparedness.

Education - how you would communicate

Rumors and no information - cause violence

Anticipate it and tell community this is where you can find reliable info

SPEro News 2 - Water.pdf6686.0KB
SPEro News 5 - Resilience.pdf2222.4KB
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