Teslinhiker, I'll stand by the heavy and gimmicky tools. Look back at Dagny's original post. The bag is proposed for the car and/or office. Those heavy tools are appropriate for those venues in rescue or recovery. They may be useable by others with more training , but less prep sense.
I think you missed some important parts of Dagny's subsequent posts which what I based my comments on.
she works at a hospital (administrative) so the first-aid component of the bag is oriented to her being elsewhere when the quake hits -- perhaps in a store or forced to abandon the car because of road/bridge damage.
My sister is pretty petite and not currently athletic (thin and not very strong) so pack weight is a major consideration.
The backpack that Dagny linked to is only 1,343 cu. in (22 liters) which is fairly small for a GHB. Also the backpack is stowaway / fold up type, so it will have minimal padding on the shoulder straps and none on the waist straps. A petite and non athletic person carrying about 10 -15 lbs for a possible 12-14 mile walk over a long period of hours will soon have pack fatigue which is why all my comments and suggestions were centered on keeping total weight to a minimum. This is why I also suggested shoes instead of boots. People do not realize how much energy goes into lifting your feet mile after mile, especially when wearing boots.
There are quite a
number of hospitals in Portland but Dagny did not mention which one but that is fine. By many measurements, Portland is a small city compared to most USA cities and if you are not caught in the downtown area then you don't have worry as much about office towers etc falling and sending debris into the streets so shoes would work ok in other areas.
For example here, there is a hospital that is located in a largely residential area of single family homes and even with a large scale quake, the streets would still be passable on foot as the quake would not send a lot of house debris onto the street and road surface itself. Another hospital I know of is in a park like setting and the streets surrounding it are a mix of residential and light commercial type buildings with minimal danger of collapsing out onto the streets and roadways.
One other thing to keep in mind, earthquakes can be fickle and cause severe damage in some areas but a few blocks over, there is minimal damage such as was seen in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
So that all said, everyone has their own ideas on what post earthquake GHB works for them. That includes me - but over the last year, I have very carefully vetted all the items I chose and firmly believe in the right tools for the task. I have also carried my 28 liter pack over some long urban distances and found out what seems like a good load of items on paper - does not always translate well to real world usefulness nor is always practical. Now that we are moving again in September, work will be about 7 miles closer so my GHB can and will be reevaluated again for that shorter distance.
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