Prairie Grove's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Prairie Grove 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. That puts Prairie Grove in the 67th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 67% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Prairie Grove sits in Arkansas

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.074g, short-period spectral response 0.155g, 1-second spectral response 0.088g. Among 68 Arkansas cities in this dataset, Prairie Grove ranks 58 for seismic hazard, the 15th percentile within the state. About 8,589 people live in Prairie Grove, Arkansas.

What a retrofit costs in Prairie Grove

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.

Earthquake insurance for a Prairie Grove 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 Prairie Grove address.

More on how this number was built

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