Pinehurst's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Pinehurst 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 Pinehurst sits at the 51th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Where Pinehurst sits in North Carolina

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.083g, short-period spectral response 0.167g, 1-second spectral response 0.075g. Among 147 North Carolina cities in this dataset, Pinehurst ranks 69 for seismic hazard, the 53th percentile within the state. About 18,502 people live in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Retrofit economics for Pinehurst

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for North Carolina. 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 Pinehurst address.

More on how this number was built

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