Amsterdam's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Amsterdam in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Amsterdam in the 59th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 59% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Amsterdam by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.12g, short-period spectral response 0.218g, 1-second spectral response 0.063g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Amsterdam ranks 90 for seismic hazard, the 47th percentile within the state. About 18,169 people live in Amsterdam, New York.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for New York. 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 Amsterdam address.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide covers exactly how USGS's public design-maps API produced Amsterdam'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.