Dunkirk, NY: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Dunkirk in Seismic Design Category A: Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. That puts Dunkirk in the 15th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 15% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Dunkirk compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.06g, short-period spectral response 0.117g, 1-second spectral response 0.039g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Dunkirk ranks 166 for seismic hazard, the 2th percentile within the state. About 12,379 people live in Dunkirk, New York.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

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 Dunkirk address.

More on how this number was built

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