Los Lunas's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Los Lunas in Seismic Design Category C: Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. Rank it against the rest of the country and Los Lunas sits at the 76th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Los Lunas compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.178g, short-period spectral response 0.401g, 1-second spectral response 0.124g. Among 35 New Mexico cities in this dataset, Los Lunas ranks 11 for seismic hazard, the 71th percentile within the state. About 19,907 people live in Los Lunas, New Mexico.

Retrofit economics for Los Lunas

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for New Mexico. 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 Los Lunas address.

More on how this number was built

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