Sunnyvale's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Sunnyvale in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Sunnyvale ranks above 29% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 29th percentile.

Sunnyvale by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.048g, short-period spectral response 0.1g, 1-second spectral response 0.055g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Sunnyvale ranks 99 for seismic hazard, the 74th percentile within the state. About 8,839 people live in Sunnyvale, Texas.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

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 Sunnyvale address.

More on how this number was built

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