Franklin's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Franklin in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Franklin in the 61th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 61% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Franklin compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.137g, short-period spectral response 0.233g, 1-second spectral response 0.055g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, Franklin ranks 144 for seismic hazard, the 26th percentile within the state. About 5,059 people live in Franklin, New Jersey.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

What this means for insurance

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 Franklin address.

More on how this number was built

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