Pea Ridge's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Pea Ridge in Seismic Design Category C: 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. Rank it against the rest of the country and Pea Ridge sits at the 67th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Pea Ridge by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.074g, short-period spectral response 0.156g, 1-second spectral response 0.091g. Among 68 Arkansas cities in this dataset, Pea Ridge ranks 57 for seismic hazard, the 16th percentile within the state. About 10,190 people live in Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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.

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 Pea Ridge address.

More on how this number was built

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