Does Clovis, NM need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Clovis in Seismic Design Category A: Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. That puts Clovis in the 14th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 14% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Clovis compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.043g, short-period spectral response 0.089g, 1-second spectral response 0.033g. Among 35 New Mexico cities in this dataset, Clovis ranks 32 for seismic hazard, the 9th percentile within the state. About 37,555 people live in Clovis, New Mexico.

Retrofit economics for Clovis

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

Earthquake insurance for a Clovis 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 Clovis address.

More on how this number was built

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