Poolesville, MD: what USGS's seismic model says

Poolesville 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. That puts Poolesville in the 45th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 45% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Poolesville compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.07g, short-period spectral response 0.134g, 1-second spectral response 0.043g. Among 46 Maryland cities in this dataset, Poolesville ranks 14 for seismic hazard, the 71th percentile within the state. About 5,856 people live in Poolesville, Maryland.

Retrofit economics for Poolesville

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

More on how this number was built

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