Santa Clara, UT: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Santa Clara in Seismic Design Category D: High seismic hazard - this is the category most of coastal California, the Pacific Northwest, and other active fault regions fall into. Code mandates significant seismic detailing and restricts irregular structural configurations. This is the category the Brace + Bolt scope (cripple-wall bracing, foundation bolting) is built for. Rank it against the rest of the country and Santa Clara sits at the 82th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Santa Clara compares

USGS's underlying values for Santa Clara: 0.211g peak ground acceleration, 0.478g at short period, 0.156g at 1 second. Within Utah alone, Santa Clara ranks 89 of 95 cities by seismic hazard - the 6th percentile in-state. Santa Clara has a population of about 8,631.

What a retrofit costs in Santa Clara

A full earthquake retrofit typically runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally (around $7,000 typical), driven mainly by house size and foundation type, not by Utah specifically. California's Earthquake Brace + Bolt grant, which covers a large share of this cost, is a California-only program and does not apply in Utah.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

A Santa Clara homeowner cannot buy a standalone earthquake policy in most cases - it is added to an existing homeowners policy as an endorsement, so the place to start is a regular home-insurance quote.

Where Santa Clara's figures come from

Santa Clara's Category D and every number above trace to USGS's own ASCE 7-16 Design Maps service - see the methodology guide. See the category explainer for what Category D does and doesn't tell you about Santa Clara.