Howard, WI: what USGS's seismic model says

Howard carries Seismic Design Category A under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. Rank it against the rest of the country and Howard sits at the 7th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Howard compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.024g, short-period spectral response 0.05g, 1-second spectral response 0.035g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Howard ranks 126 for seismic hazard, the 20th percentile within the state. About 21,961 people live in Howard, Wisconsin.

Retrofit economics for Howard

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Wisconsin. 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 Howard address.

More on how this number was built

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