Does Johnstown, NY need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Johnstown is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Johnstown in the 59th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 59% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Johnstown compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.119g, short-period spectral response 0.216g, 1-second spectral response 0.063g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Johnstown ranks 91 for seismic hazard, the 47th percentile within the state. About 8,027 people live in Johnstown, New York.

What a retrofit costs in Johnstown

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.

What this means for insurance

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 Johnstown address.

More on how this number was built

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