Does Smithville, MO need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Smithville in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Smithville in the 24th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 24% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Smithville sits in Missouri

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.043g, short-period spectral response 0.091g, 1-second spectral response 0.067g. Among 135 Missouri cities in this dataset, Smithville ranks 129 for seismic hazard, the 4th percentile within the state. About 10,971 people live in Smithville, Missouri.

What a retrofit costs in Smithville

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

Earthquake insurance for a Smithville 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 Smithville address.

More on how this number was built

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