The finding
There is no single source of frozen pipe damage statistics in the US, so this report reads the public ones side by side. In the February 2021 Texas freeze, insurers logged 434,568 residential claims and expect to pay $11.5 billion across all lines (Texas Department of Insurance), FEMA found 69.5% of inspected homes needed repairs to be habitable, and NOAA’s weather record put property damage at $274.6 million. Nationally, 3.65% of homes reported a pipe leak in the past 12 months (Census AHS 2023).
Headline figures
In this report
- One freeze, five dollar figures
- What FEMA recorded
- A freeze loss next to a flood loss
- Pipe leaks by region and age
- The one survey question about frozen pipes
- Why the weather record misses burst pipes
- Two death counts for the same freeze
- Method
- Reproduce this
- What this does not show
- Questions this report answers
- Sources
Key findings
- The February 2021 Texas freeze produced 434,568 residential property insurance claims with $4.69 billion in incurred losses, and an average incurred residential claim of $17,804 against $13,123 for Hurricane Harvey at the same age (Texas Department of Insurance report).
- NOAA’s Storm Events Database recorded $274.6 million of property damage for Texas that month, 2.4% of the $11.5 billion insurers expect to pay (NOAA, TDI).
- FEMA inspected 24.8% of 417,717 freeze registrations; 69.5% of inspected homes needed habitability repairs, against 26.6% across seven hurricanes in the same FEMA file.
- Water was recorded inside 109 inspected freeze homes, 0.11%, against 12.0% for the hurricanes: FEMA’s flood fields do not capture freeze damage (FEMA OpenFEMA).
- 3.65% of US homes, about 4.9 million, reported a pipe leak in the past 12 months; homes built before 1940 reported 4.60% and homes built since 2010 1.58% (Census AHS 2023).
- Among homes that lost power completely, 1.92% had pipes freeze as a result, the only direct frozen pipe question in the Census AHS 2023.
- 232 NOAA cold and winter event rows from 2015 to 2025 mention pipes in the narrative; 148 of them carry no property damage figure (NOAA Storm Events).
- Texas DSHS confirmed 246 deaths from the freeze; NOAA’s Texas rows record 119 (DSHS report, NOAA Storm Events).
Frozen pipe losses fall between the cracks of public data. Weather records count storms, flood programmes count rising water, and household surveys count leaks without asking why. This report uses each for what it can measure and is explicit about what it cannot. For what to do after a pipe bursts, see the burst pipe repair guide and the water damage hub.
One freeze, five dollar figures
The February 2021 Texas freeze is the one cold event that appears in every source used here, which makes it the test case for frozen pipe damage. The ledgers do not agree, because they count different things. NOAA’s Storm Events Database put the property damage from cold and winter events in Texas that month at $274.6 million. FEMA inspectors observed $112.2 million of real property damage in the owner-occupied homes they inspected, and FEMA repair awards in the file total $74.0 million. The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) report, drawn from insurers writing about 94% of the state’s property market, puts residential incurred losses at $4.69 billion and expected insured losses across all lines at $11.5 billion.
Read the gap carefully. NOAA’s figure is 2.4% of the insured total, but the TDI figure covers damage from freezing (including related water damage), ice, snow, wind and power outage, on homes, businesses and vehicles, so it is not a pure burst pipe number either. FEMA’s figures cover only households that registered for federal aid and were inspected. No public source isolates the plumbing share. What the ledgers do show is order of magnitude: TDI counted 434,568 residential insurance claims, and FEMA received 417,717 household registrations (OpenFEMA). The two groups overlap and are not interchangeable counts.
What FEMA recorded in 417,717 registrations
FEMA’s DisasterDeclarationsSummaries file lists disaster 4586 as “Severe Winter Storms”, state TX, incident type “Severe Ice Storm”, declared on 2021-02-19 (FEMA OpenFEMA). In the large-disaster housing registrants file it carries 417,717 registrations, 417,716 of them with a damaged dwelling in Texas. FEMA’s data dictionary defines rpfvl as “Real property damage amount observed by FEMA” and habitabilityRepairsRequired as “Are repairs required to make the dwelling habitable”; inspection outcome fields are read here only where inspected is True, which the dictionary describes as “Has the applicant been inspected by FEMA”.
| Measure | Disaster 4586 | Base |
|---|---|---|
| Registrations | 417,717 | All registrants |
| Owners / renters | 209,564 / 207,842 | ownRent |
| Inspected by FEMA | 24.8% | Of registrations |
| Habitability repairs required | 69.5% | Of inspected registrations |
| Owners with real property loss above $0 | 82.6% | Of inspected owners |
| Median real property loss (rpfvl) | $3,523 | Inspected owners, loss above $0 |
| Water recorded inside (waterLevel above 0) | 109 (0.11%) | Of inspected registrations |
| floodDamage flag True | 6 | Of inspected registrations |
| Destroyed | 7 | Of inspected registrations |
| Owners reporting homeowners insurance | 62.9% | Of owner registrations |
| Owners reporting flood insurance | 5.0% | Of owner registrations |
Two numbers stand out. Only 24.8% of registrations were inspected, and of those that were, 69.5% needed repairs to make the home habitable: 82.6% of inspected owners and 57.4% of inspected renters (FEMA OpenFEMA). That pattern is consistent with interior damage to plumbing, heat and water supply rather than structural loss: FEMA marked 7 homes destroyed.
The flood fields confirm this was not a flood. The dictionary defines waterLevel as “Total depth of water in damaged dwelling”; only 109 inspected registrations had a value above zero. The floodDamage flag was True on 6 rows, and FEMA now describes that field this way: “Due to inconsistencies with other data, this field is being deprecated and will no longer appear in this data set” (FEMA OpenFEMA). Neither field is useful for a freeze, and the floodDamage flag should not be used for any new analysis. roofDamage and foundationDamage are False on every one of the 417,717 rows, so they carry no information for this disaster either.
The loss amounts are not individually measured repair costs. Positive rpfvl values for inspected owners take only 170 distinct amounts, and two of them, $3,523 and $1,042, account for 78.1% of the 41,662 values (FEMA OpenFEMA). The file does not say how these amounts were set. The pattern is consistent with standard amounts rather than line-item estimates, and Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Ida and Hurricane Laura show the same clustering; Hurricane Harvey’s 166,373 distinct values do not. Treat the medians below as FEMA’s assessed amounts, not as what a repair cost.
| Residence type | Registrations | Share | Owners with loss above $0 | Median owner rpfvl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| House/Duplex | 261,112 | 62.5% | 33,076 | $3,523 |
| Apartment | 100,080 | 24.0% | 47 | n/a |
| Mobile Home | 27,633 | 6.6% | 6,966 | $1,337 |
| Other | 11,897 | 2.8% | 21 | n/a |
| Townhouse | 9,451 | 2.3% | 357 | $3,523 |
| Condo | 3,788 | 0.9% | 251 | $3,523 |
| Travel Trailer | 3,197 | 0.8% | 942 | $3,523 |
A freeze loss next to a flood loss
The registrants file holds 8 large declarations: the Texas freeze and 7 hurricanes. Pooled, the hurricane declarations had 50.6% of registrations inspected, 26.6% of inspected registrations needing habitability repairs and water recorded inside 12.0% of inspected homes (FEMA OpenFEMA). The freeze figures are 24.8%, 69.5% and 0.11% (FEMA OpenFEMA).
The freeze ranks second of 8 on the habitability share, behind Hurricane Laura (LA, 2020) at 73.1% (FEMA OpenFEMA). A flood loss shows up as water depth inside the home; a freeze loss shows up as a home that cannot be lived in without repairs, with almost no water depth recorded at all. The median owner loss for the freeze, $3,523, sits between the hurricanes rather than below them, but the selection differs: FEMA inspected a far smaller share of freeze registrations, so the inspected group is not comparable one for one.
| Declaration | Registrations | Inspected | Habitability repairs (of inspected) | Water inside (of inspected) | Median owner rpfvl | Distinct rpfvl values | Owners with homeowners insurance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Severe Winter Storms (TX, 2021) | 417,717 | 24.8% | 69.5% | 0.1% | $3,523 | 170 | 62.9% |
| Hurricane Irma (FL, 2017) | 2,644,446 | 37.8% | 11.1% | 6.3% | $500 | 103 | 66.5% |
| Hurricane Maria (PR, 2017) | 1,122,627 | 67.4% | 28.9% | 3.8% | $794 | 158,177 | 21.7% |
| Hurricane Harvey (TX, 2017) | 895,636 | 65.2% | 33.4% | 36.8% | $4,450 | 166,373 | 62.9% |
| Hurricane Ida (LA, 2021) | 816,945 | 51.8% | 34.1% | 4.5% | $4,444 | 959 | 73.9% |
| Hurricane Laura (LA, 2020) | 226,859 | 36.3% | 73.1% | 7.5% | $5,493 | 752 | 66.3% |
| Hurricane Florence (NC, 2018) | 139,818 | 69.5% | 36.0% | 28.4% | $797 | 40,632 | 69.8% |
| Hurricane Michael (FL, 2018) | 103,286 | 64.3% | 55.3% | 3.9% | $1,866 | 29,653 | 65.5% |
Homeowners insurance is the other contrast. 62.9% of freeze owner registrants reported homeowners insurance and 5.0% flood insurance (FEMA OpenFEMA). The TDI report defines flood insurance as coverage for damage caused by flood or rising water, and it counted only 31 flood insurance claims from the event, all closed without payment. The disaster insurance gap report covers insurance flags across all eight declarations. For decisions about a specific policy, read the policy and contact the insurer or the state insurance department.
Pipe leaks in American homes, by region and age
The American Housing Survey asks households where inside water leaks came from. One answer is “Pipes leaked (include pipe leaks from other apartments)” (2023 AHS Items Booklet, item WHERELK2), coded LEAKIPIPE. In 2023, 3.65% of occupied homes (90% margin plus or minus 0.18 points), about 4.9 million, reported a pipe leak in the previous 12 months, and pipes were named in 43.8% of homes with any inside leak (Census AHS 2023). The question does not ask why the pipe leaked. A frozen pipe and a corroded one count the same.
Pipe leaks are not a cold-climate story in this survey. The highest division rate is East South Central at 4.30% and the lowest is West North Central at 3.00%, a gap that clears the 90% margin of error (Census AHS 2023), and most intervals overlap. A likely reading is that homes in the coldest divisions are built and plumbed for freezing weather; the survey cannot test that. The 2023 file identifies nine census divisions and no states.
| Census division | Pipe leak, past 12 months | 90% margin (pts) | Estimated homes | Unweighted n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East South Central | 4.30% | 0.77 | 0.4 million | 1,987 |
| Middle Atlantic | 4.18% | 0.55 | 0.7 million | 5,420 |
| New England | 3.87% | 0.84 | 0.2 million | 3,080 |
| West South Central | 3.80% | 0.53 | 0.6 million | 6,228 |
| Pacific | 3.65% | 0.45 | 0.7 million | 9,816 |
| South Atlantic | 3.62% | 0.33 | 1.0 million | 9,765 |
| Mountain | 3.47% | 0.75 | 0.4 million | 3,234 |
| East North Central | 3.18% | 0.47 | 0.6 million | 7,058 |
| West North Central | 3.00% | 0.72 | 0.3 million | 1,904 |
Age matters more than region. Homes built in 1939 or earlier reported pipe leaks at 4.60%, against 1.58% for homes built in 2010 or later, 2.9 times higher (Census AHS 2023). Age overlaps with region, building type and how long the household has lived there, so this is description, not cause. The wider leak picture is in the household water leak report.
| Year built | Pipe leak | 90% margin (pts) | Estimated homes | Unweighted n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 or earlier | 4.60% | 0.56 | 0.7 million | 5,685 |
| 1940 to 1959 | 4.04% | 0.44 | 0.7 million | 6,734 |
| 1960 to 1979 | 4.01% | 0.41 | 1.3 million | 12,339 |
| 1980 to 1999 | 4.00% | 0.36 | 1.3 million | 12,566 |
| 2000 to 2009 | 2.85% | 0.38 | 0.5 million | 6,508 |
| 2010 or later | 1.58% | 0.33 | 0.2 million | 4,660 |
The one survey question about frozen pipes
The AHS does not ask whether a leaking pipe had frozen. It does ask, of households whose home lost power completely in the past 12 months, whether “any pipes freeze in your home as a result of a power outage” (2023 AHS Items Booklet, item OUTPIPEFZ). The outage questions went to half the sample. Among those 24,020 homes, 25.7% had a complete power loss, and 0.49% of all homes (90% margin plus or minus 0.11 points) had pipes freeze because of it: 1.92% of homes that lost power (Census AHS 2023).
Applied to all 133.2 million occupied homes, that share implies roughly 0.66 million homes (plus or minus 0.14 million) with outage-related frozen pipes in a year, a ratio estimate built from a 102-household sample (Census AHS 2023). It misses every pipe that froze with the power on. The South has the highest rate of the regions shown, 0.71%, against 0.36% in the rest of the country, a gap that clears the 90% margin of error (Census AHS 2023).
| Group | Lost power completely | Pipes froze in outage, of all homes | 90% margin (pts) | Of homes that lost power | Unweighted n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All occupied homes | 25.7% | 0.49% | 0.11 | 1.92% | 24,020 |
| Northeast | suppressed | n/a | 4,125 | ||
| Midwest | 0.34% | 0.16 | 4,481 | ||
| South | 0.71% | 0.19 | 8,973 | ||
| West | suppressed | n/a | 6,441 |
A wider cold measure covers the full sample: 7.8% of homes were uncomfortably cold for 24 hours or more the previous winter, and 2.2% were cold because of a utility interruption or power outage (Census AHS 2023, items COLD and COLDUTIL). The South has the highest utility-interruption rate, 2.7% (Census AHS 2023). For a contractor, that is the population where a heat loss can become a burst pipe.
Why the weather record misses burst pipes
NOAA’s Storm Events Database logged 55,440 rows of Extreme Cold/Wind Chill, Cold/Wind Chill, Frost/Freeze, Winter Storm and Ice Storm events in the 50 states and DC from 2015 to 2025. Together they carry $911.2 million of property damage, and only 2,176 rows, 3.9%, have a positive estimate at all (NOAA Storm Events). That eleven-year national total is less than a tenth of the $11.5 billion the TDI report expects insurers to pay for the single Texas freeze.
The reason is in the rules. NWS Instruction 10-1605 (26 July 2021), section 2.7, says property damage should be entered when a reasonably accurate estimate is available; “If this estimate is not available, then the preparer has two choices: either check the ‘no information available’ box, or make an estimate. The lone exception is for flood events.” So flood rows must carry a dollar figure, and cold rows need not. NOAA estimates weather damage from what forecasters can gather in the weeks after an event; it does not collect insured plumbing claims, which reach insurers one household at a time.
| Event type | Rows | With a positive estimate | Property damage | Median positive estimate | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter Storm | 31,260 | 5.0% | $373.6 million | $20,000 | 197 |
| Ice Storm | 2,483 | 17.5% | $282.3 million | $50,000 | 33 |
| Extreme Cold/Wind Chill | 9,426 | 0.9% | $154.9 million | $153,500 | 134 |
| Cold/Wind Chill | 6,237 | 1.2% | $99.0 million | $60,000 | 357 |
| Frost/Freeze | 6,034 | 0.2% | $1.5 million | $100,000 | 2 |
The narratives say what the dollar fields leave out. 232 cold and winter event rows in 14 states mention pipes in their own event narrative, and 148 of them, 63.8%, carry a property damage value of zero or none (NOAA Storm Events). The largest cluster is Ohio in December 2022, where 47 zone rows mention pipes and carry no damage estimate (NOAA Storm Events).
Where cold events kill, and where NOAA records damage
| State | Deaths | Property damage | Event rows | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 157 | $376.0 million | 2,277 | 184 |
| Wisconsin | 76 | $2.4 million | 2,028 | 290 |
| California | 60 | $16.0 million | 1,336 | 353 |
| Illinois | 42 | $6.7 million | 1,831 | 188 |
| Tennessee | 32 | $78.6 million | 1,053 | 124 |
| Kentucky | 29 | $2.8 million | 1,963 | 125 |
| Arizona | 28 | $1.3 million | 127 | 49 |
| Nevada | 26 | $13.0 million | 51 | 34 |
| Pennsylvania | 25 | $3.2 million | 1,354 | 183 |
| Oregon | 21 | $72.9 million | 658 | 282 |
| New York | 16 | $5.2 million | 2,261 | 265 |
| Ohio | 16 | $18.0 million | 1,069 | 116 |
Texas leads both columns because of one month. Texas rows beginning in February 2021 account for 119 deaths and $274.6 million of property damage across 25 episodes and 245 forecast zones (NOAA Storm Events). Nationally that month, the same event types logged 150 deaths in 46 states. The NOAA files do not give the storm a name, and neither does this report.
| Year | Property damage | Deaths |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $152.4 million | 92 |
| 2016 | $13.8 million | 66 |
| 2017 | $69.9 million | 40 |
| 2018 | $69.4 million | 53 |
| 2019 | $37.1 million | 68 |
| 2020 | $3.8 million | 37 |
| 2021 | $331.0 million | 164 |
| 2022 | $20.9 million | 56 |
| 2023 | $157.3 million | 18 |
| 2024 | $49.6 million | 78 |
| 2025 | $6.2 million | 51 |
Two death counts for the same freeze
NOAA’s Texas rows for February 2021 record 119 deaths, 82 of them direct (NOAA Storm Events). The Texas Department of State Health Services, working from death certificates and medical certifier reports, confirmed 246 winter storm-related deaths across 77 counties, 158 of them from hypothermia (DSHS report, 31 December 2021). The DSHS figure is 2.1 times NOAA’s. The pattern matches the dollar gap: Storm Events is a weather log built soon after the event, not a full accounting of its impact.
Method
How we counted. FEMA: we read all 6,367,334 rows of the IndividualAssistanceHousingRegistrantsLargeDisasters v1 file (8 declarations) in one pass and joined declaration titles, states, incident types and dates from DisasterDeclarationsSummaries v2 by disaster number. Disaster 4586 was identified from that join, not assumed. Inspection outcomes (rpfvl, habitabilityRepairsRequired, destroyed, waterLevel, floodDamage, repairAmount) are counted only where inspected is True; 3 uninspected freeze rows that carried an outcome value were excluded, and 14,812 inspected freeze rows had a blank habitability field and count as not required. Loss medians use owners with rpfvl above $0; no negative loss values were found. Census: the 2023 AHS national PUF v1.1, 48,527 occupied homes; 35 with LEAKIPIPE not reported were dropped; OUTPIPEFZ uses the 24,020 half-sample homes that answered OUTAGE, dropping 5 with OUTPIPEFZ not reported. Standard errors use the 160 replicate weights, variance = 4/160 times the sum of squared deviations, and margins are 90%. NOAA: details files for 2015 to 2025, five event types, 50 states and DC; DAMAGE_PROPERTY of 0.00K or blank is treated as no estimate. Pipe mentions are a case-insensitive match for ‘pipe’ or ‘pipes’ in EVENT_NARRATIVE. Texas Department of Insurance and DSHS figures are parsed from the published PDFs (retrieved 7 October 2026); they are quoted, not recomputed.
Reproduce this
Reproduce this
- Endpoint
https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v1/IndividualAssistanceHousingRegistrantsLargeDisasters- Query
$filter=disasterNumber eq 4586&$select=id,disasterNumber,damagedStateAbbreviation,ownRent,residenceType,homeOwnersInsurance,floodInsurance,inspected,rpfvl,ppfvl,habitabilityRepairsRequired,destroyed,waterLevel,floodDamage,roofDamage,foundationDamage,repairAmount&$orderby=id&$top=10000&$skip=0,10000,...- Rows retrieved
- 417,717 rows for disaster 4586; 6,367,334 across all 8 declarations (comparison uses the same query without the filter)
- Retrieved
- 6 October 2026
The server’s unfiltered count was 6,400,532 on 6 October 2026, 33,198 more rows than any filtered query returns; the complete retrievable file is used. Declaration metadata: https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v2/DisasterDeclarationsSummaries.
Reproduce this
- Endpoint
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs/2023/AHS%202023%20National%20PUF%20v1.1%20CSV.zip- Query
household.csv: TENURE in ('1','2','3'); LEAKIPIPE, LEAKI, OUTAGE, OUTPIPEFZ, COLD, COLDUTIL ('1' yes, '2' no, '-6' not applicable, '-9' not reported); DIVISION, YRBUILT; WEIGHT and REPWEIGHT1 to REPWEIGHT160- Rows retrieved
- 55,669 household records, 48,527 occupied
- Retrieved
- 6 October 2026
Reproduce this
- Endpoint
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/swdi/stormevents/csvfiles/- Query
EVENT_TYPE in ('Extreme Cold/Wind Chill','Cold/Wind Chill','Frost/Freeze','Winter Storm','Ice Storm'); YEAR 2015 to 2025; STATE in the 50 states and DC- Rows retrieved
- 55,440 event rows
- Retrieved
- 6 October 2026
Files: StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2015_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2016_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2017_c20260519.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2018_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2019_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2020_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2021_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2022_c20260625.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2023_c20260323.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2024_c20260728.csv.gz, StormEvents_details-ftp_v1.0_d2025_c20260819.csv.gz.
What this does not show
What this does not show
- No dataset isolates frozen pipes. TDI losses include ice, snow, wind and power outage; FEMA records damage, not its cause; the AHS pipe leak item does not ask why a pipe leaked; NOAA records weather.
- One freeze, one state. Disaster 4586 is the only cold event in the FEMA large-disaster file. Its figures describe Texas in 2021, a state where many homes are not built for sustained freezing.
- FEMA covers registrants only. 417,717 households registered, fewer than the 434,568 residential insurance claims. Insured households with no unmet need may never register.
- Inspection selection differs. FEMA inspected a quarter of freeze registrations and half of hurricane ones; the comparison is between inspected groups chosen differently.
- FEMA loss amounts cluster on fixed values. They reflect FEMA’s assessment rules and are not contractor repair costs.
- AHS is self-reported, national and division level. No state figures; outage items come from a half sample; margins cover sampling error only.
- NOAA dollars are nominal estimates. Zero means zero or not obtained. They are not insured losses.
- TDI is a snapshot. Data as of 30 June 2022, insurers writing most but not all of the Texas market.
Most quotable figures
- The February 2021 Texas freeze generated 434,568 residential insurance claims, per the Texas Department of Insurance report.
- The average incurred residential claim from the 2021 Texas freeze was $17,804, higher than Hurricane Harvey’s $13,123 (Texas Department of Insurance report).
- NOAA’s weather record captured 2.4% of the insured losses from the 2021 Texas freeze (NOAA Storm Events, TDI).
- 69.5% of FEMA-inspected homes in the 2021 Texas freeze needed repairs to be habitable; only 0.11% had water depth recorded (FEMA OpenFEMA).
- About 4.9 million US homes report a leaking pipe in a year, 3.65% of occupied homes (Census AHS 2023).
- 64% of NOAA cold-weather event records that mention pipes carry no property damage figure (NOAA Storm Events, 2015 to 2025).
Questions this report answers
Where can I find frozen pipe damage statistics?
No US dataset counts frozen pipes directly. The closest public sources are state insurance regulator reports on single events (the Texas Department of Insurance counted 434,568 residential claims in 2021), FEMA’s housing registrant file, the Census American Housing Survey and NOAA’s Storm Events Database. Each measures a different slice.
How much damage did the 2021 Texas freeze cause?
Insurers expected to pay about $11.5 billion across all lines, with $4.69 billion incurred on residential policies by 30 June 2022, per the TDI report. That covers freezing, related water damage, ice, snow, wind and power outage, not burst pipes alone.
How common are leaking pipes in homes?
In the 2023 Census AHS, 3.65% of occupied homes, about 4.9 million, reported a pipe leak in the past 12 months. Among homes that lost power completely, 1.92% had pipes freeze.
Why does NOAA show so little damage from cold weather?
Under NWS Instruction 10-1605 a forecaster may leave damage blank when no reasonable estimate is available, except for floods. Only 3.9% of cold and winter event rows from 2015 to 2025 have a positive estimate (NOAA Storm Events).
Does flood insurance cover frozen pipes?
This report does not give coverage advice. The data show that 5.0% of FEMA freeze owner registrants reported flood insurance and 62.9% homeowners insurance, and that the TDI report found 31 flood claims, none paid. Ask your insurer or state insurance department; for flood policies, see FloodSmart.gov.
How to cite
Remediation Insider. Frozen Pipe Damage Statistics: The 2021 Texas Freeze and US Homes. https://remediationinsider.com/frozen-pipe-damage-statistics/ (retrieved 6 October 2026).
Data and tables in this report are released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Remediation Insider.
Sources
- FEMA. OpenFEMA Dataset: Individual Assistance Housing Registrants Large Disasters v1. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
- FEMA. OpenFEMA data dictionary (OpenFemaDataSetFields) for the dataset. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- FEMA. OpenFEMA Dataset: Disaster Declarations Summaries v2. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
- US Census Bureau and HUD. American Housing Survey 2023, National PUF v1.1; 2023 AHS Definitions; 2023 AHS Items Booklet (items WHERELK2, OUTAGE, OUTPIPEFZ, COLD). Retrieved 6 October 2026.
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Storm Events Database, details CSV files. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
- National Weather Service. NWS Instruction 10-1605, Storm Data Preparation, 26 July 2021, section 2.7.
- Texas Department of Insurance. Insured Losses Resulting from the February 2021 Texas Winter Weather Event, data as of 30 June 2022 (report page). Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- Texas Department of State Health Services. February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas, 31 December 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- Related: billion-dollar disaster record and owner and renter damage gap, Remediation Insider.
- No survey, interview or inspection was conducted for this report. Every figure is computed at build time from the public files.
This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency’s website(s).