Irvington's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Irvington is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Irvington in the 66th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 66% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Irvington compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.185g, short-period spectral response 0.297g, 1-second spectral response 0.061g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Irvington ranks 9 for seismic hazard, the 95th percentile within the state. About 6,502 people live in Irvington, New York.

What a retrofit costs in Irvington

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

Earthquake insurance for a Irvington 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 Irvington address.

More on how this number was built

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