Does York, SC need an earthquake retrofit?

York carries Seismic Design Category C under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Moderate seismic hazard. Code adds irregular-building restrictions and requires bracing of some nonstructural components (e.g. tall shelving, water heaters) in addition to structural detailing. That puts York in the 72th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 72% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

How York compares

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.124g, short-period spectral response 0.234g, 1-second spectral response 0.088g. Among 66 South Carolina cities in this dataset, York ranks 63 for seismic hazard, the 5th percentile within the state. About 9,830 people live in York, South Carolina.

Retrofit economics for York

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

More on how this number was built

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