Does Mesquite, TX need an earthquake retrofit?

Mesquite carries Seismic Design Category B under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Mesquite ranks above 28% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 28th percentile.

How Mesquite compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.047g, short-period spectral response 0.098g, 1-second spectral response 0.055g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Mesquite ranks 105 for seismic hazard, the 73th percentile within the state. About 150,140 people live in Mesquite, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Mesquite

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 Mesquite address.

More on how this number was built

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