A question for those whom have never known snow...

I obviously have no idea how your place it laid out Moodles, but any chance there is a shutoff just for that bathroom? Some houses have branch lines that can be turned off to isolate a bathroom without shutting down service for the whole place. But that's not the case everywhere and it might inaccessible, just a suggestion. If you can possible visually trace the line anywhere, you might find another shut off point.

read this as "sorrow" at first, and was really intrigued to see if anyone would identify as not having known sorrow

unfortunately there isn't anything obviously visible

Sorry, just a hopeful thought.

Water pipes on the exterior of buildings boggles my mind, and I live only one state over.

An Australian relative was telling me once how he was trying to figure out something with his pipes because they were on the west side of his house and his water got hot in the afternoons. I was all WHAT.

I don't know how water gets to my upstairs toilet – maybe some sort of paternoster system – but I know at least that it's not snaking up the side of my house.

Within the exterior walls, not actually on the outside of the wall. It usually doesn't get cold enough here for those "exterior" pipes to freeze, because you've still got the house's heating system overcoming the mild cold outside. This week we had a fatal combination of extended freezing temps far below what we usually see plus widespread power outages.

(also many homes here have electric heating only, no gas or oil except for maybe water heaters)

shutoff for the bathroom could be in the basement. i would call a plumber to see if they can tell you where it might be even if they can't come out right now. could save you a lot of trouble and $ in the future. like your bathtub falling through the ceiling as in breaking bad!

we don't have basements here! as f. hazel was saying, I believe the tub that is against the exterior wall is the culprit.

I've had frozen pipes in Georgia and Oregon and both times the problem was a pipe within an exterior, noninsulated wall

I worked on a gut and remodel of a Craftsman-style bungalow, when we got to tearing off the exterior walls, the insulation was torn up newspaper from the '20s.

Tons of houses like that in Houston and Dallas - in the Sun Belt boom areas, the situation is less dire with houses built later.

Yeah my house growing up in AU had external pipes, or at least exposed and in the garage.

Even we once had blocked pipes due to a freezing winter (about -10C). But only the once.

...and we're back to sunny and highs in the upper 60s. it's beautiful outside, which belies how deeply traumatized people are.

only a 60 degree shift in less than a week, no biggie. It is very strange how it's just gone, but there's a lot left to do to get back to fully functioning.

I think the rapid shifts increase the psychological weight - it happens every lesser winter storm, everyone is dazed for a few days because it so quickly ramps back into being nice. This time I'm seeing so many people with a thousand yard stare.

Yeah, and after a year of COVID a lot of people went into this with not much left in the tank. And having your own home turn into hostile territory after months of being your sole refuge just breaks your brain.

I checked my receipts, and it looks like I started planning for this on the 7th, I bought a bunch of firewood and placed a big HEB curbside order for the 10th. At the time it seemed like overkill, now I'm glad I did it since I ended up hosting a guest for four days. My hands are still all torn to shit from digging in the ice for water shutoff valves.

And this was a statewide disaster event, unlike a hurricane, which just pounds the coastal areas but generally falls apart into rain and minor wind incidents by the time they get to Austin or DFW.