Ashland's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Ashland is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Ashland in the 50th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 50% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Ashland by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.08g, short-period spectral response 0.155g, 1-second spectral response 0.069g. Among 79 Kentucky cities in this dataset, Ashland ranks 59 for seismic hazard, the 26th percentile within the state. About 21,066 people live in Ashland, Kentucky.

What a retrofit costs in Ashland

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

More on how this number was built

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