Rockaway, NJ: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Rockaway in Seismic Design 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 Rockaway sits at the 62th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Rockaway by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.155g, short-period spectral response 0.258g, 1-second spectral response 0.057g. Among 194 New Jersey cities in this dataset, Rockaway ranks 120 for seismic hazard, the 38th percentile within the state. About 6,651 people live in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Earthquake insurance for a Rockaway 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 Rockaway address.

More on how this number was built

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