Does St. Matthews, KY need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, St. Matthews is 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. Nationally, St. Matthews ranks above 69% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 69th percentile.

St. Matthews by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.093g, short-period spectral response 0.19g, 1-second spectral response 0.097g. Among 79 Kentucky cities in this dataset, St. Matthews ranks 27 for seismic hazard, the 67th percentile within the state. About 17,806 people live in St. Matthews, Kentucky.

What a retrofit costs in St. Matthews

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

Earthquake insurance for a St. Matthews 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. Matthews address.

More on how this number was built

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