Cape Coral, FL: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Cape Coral in Seismic Design Category A: Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. Nationally, Cape Coral ranks above 4% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 4th percentile.

Cape Coral by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.022g, short-period spectral response 0.046g, 1-second spectral response 0.024g. Among 228 Florida cities in this dataset, Cape Coral ranks 142 for seismic hazard, the 38th percentile within the state. About 233,025 people live in Cape Coral, Florida.

What a retrofit costs in Cape Coral

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

More on how this number was built

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