Iowa Park's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Iowa Park in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Iowa Park ranks above 50% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 50th percentile.

How Iowa Park compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.08g, short-period spectral response 0.156g, 1-second spectral response 0.059g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Iowa Park ranks 19 for seismic hazard, the 95th percentile within the state. About 6,583 people live in Iowa Park, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Iowa Park

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

More on how this number was built

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