Iola's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Iola is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Iola in the 23th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 23% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Iola compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.043g, short-period spectral response 0.092g, 1-second spectral response 0.069g. Among 63 Kansas cities in this dataset, Iola ranks 44 for seismic hazard, the 31th percentile within the state. About 5,309 people live in Iola, 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.

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 Iola address.

More on how this number was built

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