Does Williamsville, NY need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Williamsville is 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 Williamsville sits at the 54th percentile for seismic hazard among 4,875 US cities.

How Williamsville compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.095g, short-period spectral response 0.17g, 1-second spectral response 0.045g. Among 170 New York cities in this dataset, Williamsville ranks 118 for seismic hazard, the 31th percentile within the state. About 5,489 people live in Williamsville, New York.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for New York. 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 Williamsville address.

More on how this number was built

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