Hays's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Hays 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 Hays sits at the 27th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Hays sits in Kansas

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.046g, short-period spectral response 0.095g, 1-second spectral response 0.043g. Among 63 Kansas cities in this dataset, Hays ranks 12 for seismic hazard, the 82th percentile within the state. About 21,213 people live in Hays, Kansas.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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 Hays 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 Hays address.

More on how this number was built

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