Stone County, Mississippi · Wiggins
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With 10% of homes built before 1960 and about 1 hard-freeze night a year, frozen and split pipes are a leading winter risk in the county.
January brings the most downpours to Stone County, part of 20 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
10% of homes here predate 1960, when clay and cast iron sewer laterals were standard. Roots and cracks in those lines are a common cause of backups.
In Stone County, 7 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
13% of occupied homes in Stone County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Mississippi county median of 15.1%.
With 140 muggy nights a year, mold in Stone County can appear within days of a leak. Dry first, then clean.
Local risk profile
Stone County covers 445 square miles of southeast Mississippi, with about 18,894 residents and 7,670 homes. Wiggins is the county seat; Bond is the next largest community. Much of its housing is recent, with a median build year of 1996.
44/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Moderate Stone County ranks 56 of 82 Mississippi counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Stone County ranks highest compared with other Mississippi counties.
Stone County is milder than most of Mississippi, but not mild enough to skip winterizing. It averaged 20 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 1 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 82 Mississippi counties that's 75th.
With only about 20 freezing nights a year, many homes here aren't built for cold, so a single arctic outbreak can burst pipes across the county. The record low in this data was about 14°F, on January 18, 2018.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Mississippi. About 20 days a year bring an inch or more (2nd of 82), most often in January, out of 69.4 inches of total precipitation. On August 30, 2021, 7 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 9.59 inches (through August 31, 2021).
About 20 days a year swing from below freezing at night to above freezing by day. Those freeze-thaw cycles feed ice dams on roofs, open cracks in foundations and driveways, and stress pipes that are already marginal.
Housing
Roughly 27% of the county's housing was built before 1980. That puts Stone among the newer housing stocks of Mississippi's 82 counties.
Growth since 2000 added 43% of today's homes. In houses that new, the weak points are washing machine hoses, ice maker lines, water heaters and sump pumps rather than the pipes in the walls.
About 30% of homes went up between 1980 and 1999. Some houses from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s were plumbed with polybutylene, a gray plastic pipe known for failing at fittings. A plumber can tell you in a few minutes whether you have it.
Here 21% of housing is manufactured homes. Check the skirting and the heat tape on the main water line every fall, because that one exposed line is what freezes.
Beyond water
Stone County averages 140 warm, muggy nights a year (lows of 65°F or more) and gets the most rain in June. Mold grows when indoor humidity stays above about 60%, the EPA's ceiling. A basement dehumidifier set to 50% and drying anything wet within 24 to 48 hours prevents most problems.
Mold remediation: what to expectHeating fuel matters for fire risk. In Stone County it's 11% utility gas, 75% electric, 11% propane and 1% wood. Fires here are likelier to start in the kitchen or the wiring than in the furnace. After any fire, keep the HVAC off until ducts are checked, or soot will travel through the house.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Stone County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Forrest gets more pipe-freeze nights than Stone. It also has the most heavy-rain days in its area. Forrest County has the oldest housing nearby, with 48% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Stone | Mississippi median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 9.5% | 15% | 71 of 82 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 27% | 45% | 78 of 82 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 43% | 23% | 6 of 82 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 21% | 20% | 38 of 82 |
| Vacant homes | 13% | 17% | 71 of 82 |
| Wood or propane heat | 13% | 15% | 51 of 82 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 1/yr | 3/yr | 75 of 82 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 20/yr | 16/yr | 2 of 82 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 20/yr | 32/yr | 76 of 82 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 140/yr | 125/yr | 8 of 82 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Mississippi county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Stone County: freezing from midwinter, heavy rain in January, April and May.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology