Melrose's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Melrose in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Melrose ranks above 65% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 65th percentile.

How Melrose compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.18g, short-period spectral response 0.297g, 1-second spectral response 0.069g. Among 58 Massachusetts cities in this dataset, Melrose ranks 14 for seismic hazard, the 77th percentile within the state. About 29,938 people live in Melrose, Massachusetts.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

More on how this number was built

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