Does Sussex, WI need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Sussex in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Sussex in the 18th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 18% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Sussex compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.035g, short-period spectral response 0.073g, 1-second spectral response 0.047g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Sussex ranks 70 for seismic hazard, the 56th percentile within the state. About 12,607 people live in Sussex, Wisconsin.

Retrofit economics for Sussex

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Wisconsin. 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 Sussex address.

More on how this number was built

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