Does Greensburg, PA need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Greensburg 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 Greensburg sits at the 23th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Greensburg compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.042g, short-period spectral response 0.088g, 1-second spectral response 0.044g. Among 193 Pennsylvania cities in this dataset, Greensburg ranks 143 for seismic hazard, the 26th percentile within the state. About 14,586 people live in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

What a retrofit costs in Greensburg

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

Earthquake insurance for a Greensburg 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 Greensburg address.

More on how this number was built

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