Does New Brunswick, NJ need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, New Brunswick is 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 New Brunswick sits at the 62th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where New Brunswick sits in New Jersey

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.155g, short-period spectral response 0.258g, 1-second spectral response 0.056g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, New Brunswick ranks 119 for seismic hazard, the 39th percentile within the state. About 57,487 people live in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

What a retrofit costs in New Brunswick

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

More on how this number was built

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