Verona's Seismic Design Category, explained

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Verona in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Verona ranks above 19% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 19th percentile.

How Verona compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.037g, short-period spectral response 0.076g, 1-second spectral response 0.049g. Among 157 Wisconsin cities in this dataset, Verona ranks 44 for seismic hazard, the 72th percentile within the state. About 16,825 people live in Verona, Wisconsin.

What a retrofit costs in Verona

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 Verona address.

More on how this number was built

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