[dont__panic]

Woah, that's wild! I've lived in mostly wooden houses in the Northeast for most of my life, and it seems to happen to one or two people in every community per year.

It's mostly a problem where I come from during power outages -- if you don't have power for 2-3 days, you might not be able to run even a propane-based heating system. But maybe the prevalance of water baseboard heating systems contributes; I imagine they're the most vulnerable pipes in the house to freezing, since they by nature sit closest to cold exterior temperatures.

One more thing I assumed was a worldwide problem, that it turns out is just a result of shoddy American building quality. Sigh.