Raleigh's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Raleigh in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Raleigh in the 33th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 33% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Raleigh sits in North Carolina

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.055g, short-period spectral response 0.117g, 1-second spectral response 0.059g. Among 147 North Carolina cities in this dataset, Raleigh ranks 118 for seismic hazard, the 20th percentile within the state. About 499,825 people live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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.

Earthquake insurance for a Raleigh 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 Raleigh address.

More on how this number was built

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