Sunland Park's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Sunland Park 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 Sunland Park in the 72th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 72% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Sunland Park compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.126g, short-period spectral response 0.287g, 1-second spectral response 0.094g. Among 35 New Mexico cities in this dataset, Sunland Park ranks 17 for seismic hazard, the 53th percentile within the state. About 18,185 people live in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Retrofit economics for Sunland Park

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

What this means for insurance

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 Sunland Park address.

More on how this number was built

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