Cabot's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Cabot in Seismic Design Category D: High seismic hazard - this is the category most of coastal California, the Pacific Northwest, and other active fault regions fall into. Code mandates significant seismic detailing and restricts irregular structural configurations. This is the category the Brace + Bolt scope (cripple-wall bracing, foundation bolting) is built for. Rank it against the rest of the country and Cabot sits at the 86th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Cabot compares

USGS's underlying values for Cabot: 0.333g peak ground acceleration, 0.554g at short period, 0.18g at 1 second. Within Arkansas alone, Cabot ranks 15 of 68 cities by seismic hazard - the 79th percentile in-state. Cabot has a population of about 27,575.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

A full earthquake retrofit typically runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally (around $7,000 typical), driven mainly by house size and foundation type, not by Arkansas specifically. California's Earthquake Brace + Bolt grant, which covers a large share of this cost, is a California-only program and does not apply in Arkansas.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

A Cabot homeowner cannot buy a standalone earthquake policy in most cases - it is added to an existing homeowners policy as an endorsement, so the place to start is a regular home-insurance quote.

Where Cabot's figures come from

Cabot's Category D and every number above trace to USGS's own ASCE 7-16 Design Maps service - see the methodology guide. See the category explainer for what Category D does and doesn't tell you about Cabot.