Does Poquoson, VA need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Poquoson in Seismic Design Category A: Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. That puts Poquoson in the 14th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 14% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Poquoson compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.045g, short-period spectral response 0.093g, 1-second spectral response 0.04g. Among 63 Virginia cities in this dataset, Poquoson ranks 58 for seismic hazard, the 8th percentile within the state. About 12,854 people live in Poquoson, Virginia.

Retrofit economics for Poquoson

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

Earthquake insurance for a Poquoson 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 Poquoson address.

More on how this number was built

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