Lancaster's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Lancaster in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Lancaster ranks above 24% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 24th percentile.

How Lancaster compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.043g, short-period spectral response 0.09g, 1-second spectral response 0.052g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Lancaster ranks 137 for seismic hazard, the 64th percentile within the state. About 40,780 people live in Lancaster, Texas.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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.

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 Lancaster address.

More on how this number was built

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