Does Janesville, WI need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Janesville in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Janesville ranks above 25% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 25th percentile.

Janesville by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.044g, short-period spectral response 0.089g, 1-second spectral response 0.053g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Janesville ranks 10 for seismic hazard, the 94th percentile within the state. About 66,428 people live in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Retrofit economics for Janesville

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.

Earthquake insurance for a Janesville 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 Janesville address.

More on how this number was built

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