Salem's Seismic Design Category, explained

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Salem is 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 sits at the 58th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

Salem by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.111g, short-period spectral response 0.2g, 1-second spectral response 0.065g. Among 63 Virginia cities in this dataset, Salem ranks 17 for seismic hazard, the 74th percentile within the state. About 25,908 people live in Salem, Virginia.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

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 address.

More on how this number was built

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