Does Dover, DE need an earthquake retrofit?

Dover carries Seismic Design Category A under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. Nationally, Dover ranks above 16% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 16th percentile.

Where Dover sits in Delaware

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.068g, short-period spectral response 0.13g, 1-second spectral response 0.041g. Among 11 Delaware cities in this dataset, Dover ranks 7 for seismic hazard, the 40th percentile within the state. About 40,191 people live in Dover, Delaware.

Retrofit economics for Dover

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

Earthquake insurance for a Dover 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 Dover address.

More on how this number was built

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