Does Woburn, MA need an earthquake retrofit?

USGS's ASCE 7-16 seismic design model - the same standard building codes use - places Woburn in Seismic Design Category B: Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. Nationally, Woburn ranks above 67% of the 4,875 cities in this dataset for seismic hazard - the 67th percentile.

Woburn by the numbers

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.189g, short-period spectral response 0.308g, 1-second spectral response 0.07g. Among 58 Massachusetts cities in this dataset, Woburn ranks 10 for seismic hazard, the 84th percentile within the state. About 43,895 people live in Woburn, Massachusetts.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

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

More on how this number was built

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