Does Great Bend, KS need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Great Bend is 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 Great Bend sits at the 21th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Great Bend by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.04g, short-period spectral response 0.084g, 1-second spectral response 0.045g. Among 63 Kansas cities in this dataset, Great Bend ranks 54 for seismic hazard, the 15th percentile within the state. About 14,306 people live in Great Bend, Kansas.

Retrofit economics for Great Bend

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

Earthquake insurance for a Great Bend 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 Great Bend address.

More on how this number was built

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