Does North Aurora, IL need an earthquake retrofit?

North Aurora carries Seismic Design Category B under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, North Aurora ranks above 47% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 47th percentile.

Where North Aurora sits in Illinois

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.072g, short-period spectral response 0.138g, 1-second spectral response 0.066g. Among 330 Illinois cities in this dataset, North Aurora ranks 80 for seismic hazard, the 76th percentile within the state. About 19,329 people live in North Aurora, Illinois.

Retrofit economics for North Aurora

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

Earthquake insurance for a North Aurora 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 North Aurora address.

More on how this number was built

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