Does White Oak, TX need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places White Oak in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Rank it against the rest of the country and White Oak sits at the 28th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How White Oak compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.048g, short-period spectral response 0.101g, 1-second spectral response 0.063g. Among 384 Texas cities in this dataset, White Oak ranks 102 for seismic hazard, the 74th percentile within the state. About 6,241 people live in White Oak, Texas.

Retrofit economics for White Oak

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.

Earthquake insurance for a White Oak 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 White Oak address.

More on how this number was built

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