Madison, GA: what USGS's seismic model says

Madison carries Seismic Design Category C under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. 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 Madison sits at the 70th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Madison compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.105g, short-period spectral response 0.202g, 1-second spectral response 0.084g. Among 148 Georgia cities in this dataset, Madison ranks 50 for seismic hazard, the 67th percentile within the state. About 5,131 people live in Madison, Georgia.

Retrofit economics for Madison

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

More on how this number was built

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