Jasmine Williams had been struggling with freezing temperatures and constant power outages for three days amid Texas's intense winter storm, so when she woke up Wednesday to the sound of a distant hum, she thought she'd finally had her electricity restored.
Instead, the Dallas resident realized her entire apartment was under an inch of water and more was uncontrollably seeping through the walls.
"I realized it wasn't a leak," the 22-year-old dancer told BuzzFeed News. "The pipe busted."
Williams recorded her shocking discovery in a TikTok that has since been watched more than 1.3 million times. In the video, she sloshes through water in her apartment, crying while trying to assess the damage.
"What the fuck?" she says in the video. "That shit is flooding for no fucking reason."
Like many Texans, Williams has been dealing with devastating winter weather that has debilitated entire communities, shut down roads, and left people scrambling for basic supplies. At least 10 people have died in connection with the storm, and vulnerabilities within the state's power grid have also left millions without electricity. Icy conditions are now prompting water pipes to freeze and burst.
Residents have been told to stay off the roads. Williams' own car was unable to make it up a small hill and got stuck in the snow at her apartment complex's exit. Because of that, she hasn't been able to go to work for nearly a week.
On Wednesday, Williams, who has been sleeping under a mountain of blankets to keep warm, woke up around noon — only to find her apartment was flooded.
"I thought maybe I left the sink going or something," she said.
Instead, she said, she found most of the water was spraying out of a hole in her kitchen wall. Workers at the apartment complex had done some repairs on the wall weeks ago, leaving a gaping hole behind. When the pipe burst, cold water began spraying into her apartment.
Water also seeped into a neighbor's apartment, she said, and it took two hours before it was shut off.
It soaked everything on the floor: her furniture, a pile of laundry, the cases for her saxophone and trumpet.
"I haven't even opened it yet. I'm scared to," she said in another TikTok video showing the scene.
She said she's not sure when she'll be able to go back to work as many businesses and roads remain closed during the storm. She's started a GoFundMe page to try to deal with the costs of the damage.
Williams, who grew up in Dallas, said she's seen the city blanketed in snow before, but this storm has been something completely different.
"It was not like this," she said. "I feel like I'm in a whole other state. My family is also from Iowa, and I feel like I'm out there, seriously."
After the flooding on Wednesday, she left the apartment — which still didn't have electricity — to stay with her grandparents, who have maintained power during the storm. She doesn't know what state her home will be in when she returns.
"It's just something we weren't prepared for as Texans," Williams said.