Does Frostburg, MD need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Frostburg in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Rank it against the rest of the country and Frostburg sits at the 27th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Frostburg sits in Maryland

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.047g, short-period spectral response 0.098g, 1-second spectral response 0.045g. Among 46 Maryland cities in this dataset, Frostburg ranks 37 for seismic hazard, the 20th percentile within the state. About 6,972 people live in Frostburg, Maryland.

What a retrofit costs in Frostburg

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Maryland. 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 Frostburg address.

More on how this number was built

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