Airway Heights's Seismic Design Category, explained

Airway Heights 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 Airway Heights in the 73th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 73% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Airway Heights compares

USGS's underlying values for Airway Heights: 0.136g peak ground acceleration, 0.304g at short period, 0.112g at 1 second. Within Washington alone, Airway Heights ranks 120 of 125 cities by seismic hazard - the 4th percentile in-state. Airway Heights has a population of about 11,950.

What a retrofit costs in Airway Heights

A full earthquake retrofit typically runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally (around $7,000 typical), driven mainly by house size and foundation type, not by Washington specifically. California's Earthquake Brace + Bolt grant, which covers a large share of this cost, is a California-only program and does not apply in Washington.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

A Airway Heights homeowner cannot buy a standalone earthquake policy in most cases - it is added to an existing homeowners policy as an endorsement, so the place to start is a regular home-insurance quote.

Where Airway Heights's figures come from

Airway Heights's Category C and every number above trace to USGS's own ASCE 7-16 Design Maps service - see the methodology guide. See the category explainer for what Category C does and doesn't tell you about Airway Heights.