Beacon's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Beacon in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Beacon ranks above 61% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 61th percentile.

Where Beacon sits in New York

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.137g, short-period spectral response 0.235g, 1-second spectral response 0.057g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Beacon ranks 78 for seismic hazard, the 54th percentile within the state. About 15,292 people live in Beacon, New York.

What a retrofit costs in Beacon

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.

What this means for insurance

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 Beacon address.

More on how this number was built

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