Does Mount Vernon, NY need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Mount Vernon in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Mount Vernon in the 65th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 65% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Mount Vernon compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.181g, short-period spectral response 0.293g, 1-second spectral response 0.061g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Mount Vernon ranks 20 for seismic hazard, the 89th percentile within the state. About 71,999 people live in Mount Vernon, New York.

What a retrofit costs in Mount Vernon

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for New York. A typical retrofit still runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally, about $7,000 for a common single-family job.

Earthquake insurance for a Mount Vernon home

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 Mount Vernon address.

More on how this number was built

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