Kaser's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Kaser in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Rank it against the rest of the country and Kaser sits at the 65th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Kaser compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.181g, short-period spectral response 0.292g, 1-second spectral response 0.061g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Kaser ranks 24 for seismic hazard, the 86th percentile within the state. About 5,970 people live in Kaser, New York.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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 Kaser 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 Kaser address.

More on how this number was built

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