St. Albans's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places St. Albans in Seismic Design Category C: Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. That puts St. Albans in the 78th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 78% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where St. Albans sits in Vermont

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.213g, short-period spectral response 0.351g, 1-second spectral response 0.088g. Among 8 Vermont cities in this dataset, St. Albans ranks 2 for seismic hazard, the 86th percentile within the state. About 7,031 people live in St. Albans, Vermont.

What a retrofit costs in St. Albans

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

Earthquake insurance for a St. Albans 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 St. Albans address.

More on how this number was built

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