Carthage's Seismic Design Category, explained

Carthage 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. Rank it against the rest of the country and Carthage sits at the 39th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Carthage sits in Missouri

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.062g, short-period spectral response 0.131g, 1-second spectral response 0.082g. Among 135 Missouri cities in this dataset, Carthage ranks 96 for seismic hazard, the 29th percentile within the state. About 15,703 people live in Carthage, Missouri.

Retrofit economics for Carthage

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

More on how this number was built

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