Fact check: Photo showing frozen pipe burst in kitchen dates back to 2018

Social media users have been sharing a photograph online that shows a frozen pipe burst into a kitchen, claiming that it happened during the cold freeze in February 2021 in Texas. This claim is false.

Examples can be seen  here  and  here  . One post reads: “This happened in Houston today!” 

A brutal winter storm did leave millions without power along the U.S. Gulf Coast and caused power prices to surge over the last week, highlighting the differences between Texas’s independent power grid and the rest of the United States (here ).  

Some 8.8 million people in Texas, about a third of the state’s population, still had issues with their water supply as of early Monday, Feb. 22, authorities told Reuters, after the record-breaking freeze last week (here). 

A search on TinEye, an image search and recognition tool, revealed  here  that the photograph dates back to early 2018.  

The image was posted on Imgur on Jan. 9, 2018 (imgur.com/gallery/5yB1g) and on Reddit on Jan. 8, 2018 (here). 

The caption on the Reddit post reads: “This is what happens in my hometown when you don’t leave the faucet trickling in the winter. Pipes bursting in Watertown, NY.”

A local radio station reported on the incident on Jan. 12, 2018  here  . 

VERDICT

Miscaptioned. The photograph began circulating online in 2018 and is not of a house in Texas in February 2021.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work  here  .