Locust's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Locust is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Locust in the 54th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 54% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Locust by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.094g, short-period spectral response 0.187g, 1-second spectral response 0.08g. Among 147 North Carolina cities in this dataset, Locust ranks 54 for seismic hazard, the 64th percentile within the state. About 5,992 people live in Locust, North Carolina.

What a retrofit costs in Locust

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for North Carolina. 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 Locust address.

More on how this number was built

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