Hanover Park's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Hanover Park is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Hanover Park in the 41th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 41% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Hanover Park by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.064g, short-period spectral response 0.126g, 1-second spectral response 0.063g. Among 330 Illinois cities in this dataset, Hanover Park ranks 145 for seismic hazard, the 56th percentile within the state. About 36,685 people live in Hanover Park, Illinois.

Retrofit economics for Hanover Park

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

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

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 Hanover Park address.

More on how this number was built

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