Commerce's Seismic Design Category, explained

Commerce carries Seismic Design Category C under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. That puts Commerce in the 71th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 71% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Commerce by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.108g, short-period spectral response 0.21g, 1-second spectral response 0.088g. Among 148 Georgia cities in this dataset, Commerce ranks 45 for seismic hazard, the 70th percentile within the state. About 8,803 people live in Commerce, Georgia.

What a retrofit costs in Commerce

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

Earthquake insurance for a Commerce 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 Commerce address.

More on how this number was built

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