Monroe's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Monroe 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 Monroe sits at the 44th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Monroe sits in Ohio

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.069g, short-period spectral response 0.139g, 1-second spectral response 0.073g. Among 254 Ohio cities in this dataset, Monroe ranks 142 for seismic hazard, the 44th percentile within the state. About 15,950 people live in Monroe, Ohio.

Retrofit economics for Monroe

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

More on how this number was built

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