Does Monticello, AR need an earthquake retrofit?

Monticello carries Seismic Design Category C under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. That puts Monticello in the 71th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 71% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Monticello by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.114g, short-period spectral response 0.229g, 1-second spectral response 0.115g. Among 68 Arkansas cities in this dataset, Monticello ranks 39 for seismic hazard, the 43th percentile within the state. About 8,185 people live in Monticello, Arkansas.

What a retrofit costs in Monticello

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

More on how this number was built

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