Texas City, TX: what USGS's seismic model says

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Texas City is Category A. Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. Nationally, Texas City ranks above 12% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 12th percentile.

Texas City by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.032g, short-period spectral response 0.066g, 1-second spectral response 0.038g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Texas City ranks 238 for seismic hazard, the 38th percentile within the state. About 57,875 people live in Texas City, 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.

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 Texas City address.

More on how this number was built

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