Abingdon's Seismic Design Category, explained

Abingdon carries Seismic Design Category C under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. That puts Abingdon in the 75th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 75% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Abingdon by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.159g, short-period spectral response 0.273g, 1-second spectral response 0.084g. Among 63 Virginia cities in this dataset, Abingdon ranks 3 for seismic hazard, the 97th percentile within the state. About 8,316 people live in Abingdon, Virginia.

Retrofit economics for Abingdon

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Virginia. A typical retrofit still runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally, about $7,000 for a common single-family job.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

Outside California, earthquake coverage is typically sold as an endorsement added to a standard homeowners policy, not a separate product - worth asking about directly when getting a home-insurance quote for a Abingdon address.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide covers exactly how USGS's public design-maps API produced Abingdon's numbers. The guide to what a Seismic Design Category actually means covers why a category is never a substitute for an engineer's assessment of one specific house.