Mesa, AZ: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Mesa 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 Mesa sits at the 53th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Mesa compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.087g, short-period spectral response 0.197g, 1-second spectral response 0.068g. Among 57 Arizona cities in this dataset, Mesa ranks 37 for seismic hazard, the 36th percentile within the state. About 517,151 people live in Mesa, Arizona.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

More on how this number was built

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