Palisades Park, NJ: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Palisades Park in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Palisades Park ranks above 66% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 66th percentile.

How Palisades Park compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.183g, short-period spectral response 0.295g, 1-second spectral response 0.061g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, Palisades Park ranks 27 for seismic hazard, the 87th percentile within the state. About 20,520 people live in Palisades Park, New Jersey.

Retrofit economics for Palisades Park

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.

What this means for insurance

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 Palisades Park address.

More on how this number was built

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