Does Boonton, NJ need an earthquake retrofit?

Boonton carries Seismic Design Category B under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Boonton ranks above 63% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 63th percentile.

Boonton by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.164g, short-period spectral response 0.27g, 1-second spectral response 0.058g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, Boonton ranks 100 for seismic hazard, the 49th percentile within the state. About 8,894 people live in Boonton, New Jersey.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Earthquake insurance for a Boonton home

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 Boonton address.

More on how this number was built

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