Cleveland's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Cleveland is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Cleveland in the 49th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 49% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Cleveland by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.077g, short-period spectral response 0.143g, 1-second spectral response 0.05g. Among 254 Ohio cities in this dataset, Cleveland ranks 53 for seismic hazard, the 79th percentile within the state. About 365,379 people live in Cleveland, Ohio.

What a retrofit costs in Cleveland

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

Earthquake insurance for a Cleveland 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 Cleveland address.

More on how this number was built

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