Does Wilson, PA need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Wilson in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Wilson in the 56th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 56% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Wilson sits in Pennsylvania

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.102g, short-period spectral response 0.184g, 1-second spectral response 0.049g. Among 193 Pennsylvania cities in this dataset, Wilson ranks 24 for seismic hazard, the 88th percentile within the state. About 8,169 people live in Wilson, Pennsylvania.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

More on how this number was built

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