Does Longview, TX need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Longview 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 Longview sits at the 29th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Longview sits in Texas

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.048g, short-period spectral response 0.101g, 1-second spectral response 0.063g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Longview ranks 95 for seismic hazard, the 75th percentile within the state. About 83,668 people live in Longview, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Longview

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.

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 Longview address.

More on how this number was built

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