Goshen's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Goshen in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Goshen in the 60th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 60% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Goshen compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.131g, short-period spectral response 0.226g, 1-second spectral response 0.056g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Goshen ranks 83 for seismic hazard, the 51th percentile within the state. About 5,760 people live in Goshen, 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.

Earthquake insurance for a Goshen 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 Goshen address.

More on how this number was built

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