Salem Lakes's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Salem Lakes 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 Salem Lakes sits at the 28th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Salem Lakes compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.047g, short-period spectral response 0.094g, 1-second spectral response 0.054g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Salem Lakes ranks 3 for seismic hazard, the 99th percentile within the state. About 14,302 people live in Salem Lakes, Wisconsin.

Retrofit economics for Salem Lakes

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

Earthquake insurance for a Salem Lakes 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 Salem Lakes address.

More on how this number was built

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