Bridge City's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Bridge City is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Bridge City ranks above 20% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 20th percentile.

How Bridge City compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.039g, short-period spectral response 0.079g, 1-second spectral response 0.046g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Bridge City ranks 170 for seismic hazard, the 56th percentile within the state. About 9,806 people live in Bridge City, Texas.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Earthquake insurance for a Bridge City 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 Bridge City address.

More on how this number was built

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