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

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Universal City is Category A. Lowest seismic design category. Building code requires no seismic-specific detailing here beyond ordinary construction practice. That puts Universal City in the 7th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 7% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Universal City by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.024g, short-period spectral response 0.051g, 1-second spectral response 0.025g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, Universal City ranks 332 for seismic hazard, the 14th percentile within the state. About 20,267 people live in Universal City, Texas.

Retrofit economics for Universal City

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 Universal City address.

More on how this number was built

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