Does Stillwater, OK need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Stillwater in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Stillwater ranks above 53% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 53th percentile.

Stillwater by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.088g, short-period spectral response 0.168g, 1-second spectral response 0.068g. Among 75 Oklahoma cities in this dataset, Stillwater ranks 43 for seismic hazard, the 43th percentile within the state. About 50,138 people live in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Retrofit economics for Stillwater

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

Earthquake insurance for a Stillwater 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 Stillwater address.

More on how this number was built

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