Calling broken pipes that flood homes and make them uninhabitable an "inconvenience" is like Dr. Fauci calling the destruction of businesses, loss of jobs and destitution resulting from the lockdowns an "inconvienience"
First, it wasn’t a record cold. I lived in Tx for over a decade way south in Houston and we had snow all over the place at least twice. What was a record was a regular cold snap combined with idiots in charge — the TWOTs that seriously buy into the CO2=>warming silliness.
On the other issue, freezing pipes, Geesh, people. When we moved into our new house in Houston we were told that it was built in accordance with something called the “southern code”. Coming from the Midwest I had no bloody idea what that meant — until I looked it up. What it amounted to was no insulation on water pipes, same pipes could enter the house thru an exterior wall without any insulation, and same pipes could touch an exterior wall (usually brick) once the pipe was inside the structure and running from room to room. In other words, “southern code” means close your eyes to weather and pretend water doesn’t freeze.
When the first cold snap was on it way weather folks reminded home owners to let an exterior tap drip slightly to maintain flow thru all the pipes — no frozen pipes in the house. They also advised hiring a plumber during the spring to “fix that problem”. Anyone who let water pipes freeze .......well, just dumb comes to mind.
A lot of these frozen pipes, that MANY Texans have experienced w/this storm.....were the cold water pipes.
A friend of ours was talking with us, about this. No idea why it’s the cold water pipes, and not the hot water pipes....for many....as the same precautions (or, not!) were taken, for both.