Swoyersville, PA: what USGS's seismic model says

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Swoyersville in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Swoyersville in the 37th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 37% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How Swoyersville compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.061g, short-period spectral response 0.122g, 1-second spectral response 0.044g. Among 193 Pennsylvania cities in this dataset, Swoyersville ranks 100 for seismic hazard, the 48th percentile within the state. About 5,092 people live in Swoyersville, Pennsylvania.

Retrofit economics for Swoyersville

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

Earthquake insurance for a Swoyersville 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 Swoyersville address.

More on how this number was built

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