Does Mont Belvieu, TX need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Mont Belvieu is Category A. Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. Nationally, Mont Belvieu ranks above 13% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 13th percentile.

How Mont Belvieu compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.034g, short-period spectral response 0.071g, 1-second spectral response 0.041g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Mont Belvieu ranks 219 for seismic hazard, the 43th percentile within the state. About 10,229 people live in Mont Belvieu, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Mont Belvieu

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 Mont Belvieu address.

More on how this number was built

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