Does Rowlett, TX need an earthquake retrofit?

Rowlett 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 Rowlett in the 31th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 31% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Rowlett sits in Texas

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.051g, short-period spectral response 0.105g, 1-second spectral response 0.057g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Rowlett ranks 79 for seismic hazard, the 80th percentile within the state. About 68,123 people live in Rowlett, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Rowlett

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

Earthquake insurance for a Rowlett 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 Rowlett address.

More on how this number was built

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