Hopatcong's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Hopatcong in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Hopatcong in the 61th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 61% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Hopatcong sits in New Jersey

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.14g, short-period spectral response 0.237g, 1-second spectral response 0.055g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, Hopatcong ranks 141 for seismic hazard, the 27th percentile within the state. About 14,750 people live in Hopatcong, New Jersey.

What a retrofit costs in Hopatcong

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

Earthquake insurance for a Hopatcong 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 Hopatcong address.

More on how this number was built

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