Frozen Pipes

An arctic air mass has slid across the US which has made it bitterly cold--meaning 14° here Monday night, and much colder in the Midwest. This morning I woke up at 5:30 to the chirping of my Uninterruptable Power Supply, because our electricity had gone out. So I came downstairs, saw the temperature inside the house was 57°, and got the UPS to stop making noise...whereupon I heard water running under the house. Marvelous. First time I've ever had pipes break. Fortunately there's a main cutoff valve inside the house, so I cranked it to OFF and crawled back under the covers. Electricity came back on at 6am.
Called the plumber at 8am, they promised he'd be there before noon. We had a couple of gallon jugs of water, so we could heat up a cupful for tea and a bowlful for a sponge bath, Not exactly sufficient but better than nothing.
Noon came and went. The plumber did not.
Several more calls. "We'll put you on the schedule", they said. Silly me, I'd thought we already were on the schedule, but I guess just calling and getting a "he'll be there before noon" doesn't count.
More calls. I'm wondering which day he'll show up.
Finally the van arrives at 8pm. Plumber is a nice guy and has obviously had a long day. He crawls under the house and resurfaces with good news: the pipe did not actually break. What happened was, the cold caused the copper to contract enough that it pulled out of the coupling to the back deck faucet. He puts an end-stop on the pipe so we can turn the water back on; he'll have to come back to reconnect the deck faucet but it's not like we're watering plants in January anyway. Disaster averted.