Lehighton's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Lehighton is 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 Lehighton sits at the 49th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Lehighton compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.077g, short-period spectral response 0.146g, 1-second spectral response 0.046g. Among 193 Pennsylvania cities in this dataset, Lehighton ranks 71 for seismic hazard, the 64th percentile within the state. About 5,262 people live in Lehighton, Pennsylvania.

Retrofit economics for Lehighton

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

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

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 Lehighton address.

More on how this number was built

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