Shelby County, Texas · Center
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Center, Tenaha and Timpson. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
With 16% of homes built before 1960 and about 2 hard-freeze nights a year, frozen and split pipes are a leading winter risk in the county.
April brings the most downpours to Shelby County, part of 17.8 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
16% 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 Shelby County, 4.73 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
9% of occupied homes in Shelby County heat mainly with wood or propane, above the Texas county median of 6.5%.
Muggy summer nights, lows of 65°F or more, come about 133 times a year in Shelby County. Mold after a leak spreads fastest from June through August.
Local risk profile
With 11,584 homes and around 24,155 residents, Shelby County is 796 square miles of eastern Texas. Besides Center, the county seat, the biggest communities are Tenaha, Timpson and Joaquin. The county's median home was built in 1984.
55/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Elevated Shelby County ranks 81 of 232 Texas counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Shelby County ranks highest compared with other Texas counties.
For frozen pipes, Shelby County is a typical Texas county, which is still plenty. In the 2015–2024 record the county logged about 2 nights a year at or below 20°F (126th of 232) and 24 below freezing. Twenty degrees is roughly where uninsulated pipes start to freeze.
Cold snaps are the real risk. The worst in the record lasted 4 days below freezing (ending February 2021), and the low bottomed out near 2°F on February 16, 2021.
With only about 24 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 2°F, on February 16, 2021.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Texas. About 17.8 days a year bring an inch or more (5th of 232), most often in April, out of 59 inches of total precipitation. On March 10, 2016, 4.73 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 10 inches (through March 11, 2016).
About 23 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
43% of homes in Shelby County predate 1980, close to the Texas county median of 45.8%, which ranks 136th of Texas's 232 counties.
The mix runs from 16% built before 1960 to 26% built since 2000, so older neighborhoods bring aging pipe while newer subdivisions bring failed appliance lines and water heaters.
31% date from 1980 to 1999, the window when polybutylene, a gray flexible plastic supply pipe, was used in some homes. It's prone to leaks at the fittings, so it's worth checking for in a house from those years.
32% of homes are manufactured or mobile homes, above the Texas county median of 13.4%. Their water lines run under the floor behind the skirting, so a torn skirt or failed heat tape freezes them faster than lines in a site-built house.
With 19% of homes empty at survey time, landlords and seasonal owners should shut off the main or schedule checks in winter. An unheated vacant house is also where many policies limit freeze coverage.
Beyond water
About 133 nights a year in Shelby County stay at 65°F or warmer, a sign of muggy summer air (107th of 232 counties). May is the wettest month. Keep indoor humidity under 60%, as the EPA advises, and dry any leak within 24 to 48 hours; in a humid month a wet basement left alone won't dry by itself.
Mold remediation: what to expectBy main heating fuel, Shelby County homes break down as 24% utility gas, 67% electric, 6% propane and 3% wood. Wood heat is more common here than the state median. Have chimneys swept and fuel-burning appliances serviced each fall, and keep three feet clear around stoves and space heaters.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Shelby County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Shelby gets more pipe-freeze nights than any of its neighbors. Rusk County has the oldest housing nearby, with 49% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Shelby | Texas median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 16% | 20% | 150 of 232 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 43% | 46% | 136 of 232 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 26% | 26% | 119 of 232 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 32% | 13% | 11 of 232 |
| Vacant homes | 19% | 17% | 88 of 232 |
| Wood or propane heat | 8.5% | 6.5% | 89 of 232 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 2/yr | 3/yr | 126 of 232 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 18/yr | 7.8/yr | 5 of 232 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 23/yr | 27/yr | 129 of 232 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 133/yr | 129/yr | 107 of 232 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Texas county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Shelby County: freezing from midwinter, heavy rain in April, May and December.
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