Water damage restoration in Hempstead, Texas.

What actually causes water damage here

Hempstead is the Waller County seat, population just over 5,400, built around a river crossing where the meander belt of the Brazos has spent thousands of years cutting new channels and leaving old ones behind as oxbow lakes. That geology means low-lying land near the river holds water rather than draining it off, and railroad embankments running through town add to the ponding during heavy rain. Add in an older housing stock, plenty of homes with pier-and-beam foundations rather than modern slabs, and you get water damage that behaves differently than it does in a newer subdivision: crawlspace moisture and slow rot instead of a fast slab leak.

At the same time, Hempstead is not standing still. H-E-B broke ground on a 500-acre distribution campus here, and new residential growth is filling in around town as the broader U.S. 290 corridor booms. Older farmhouses near Liendo Plantation Road sit alongside newer construction, which means our crew sees both a 1960s pier-and-beam repair and a two-year-old slab leak in the same week.

• Wilkins Street corridor
• Nine Bar West
• Liendo Plantation area
• Business 290 / downtown square
• FM 1887 toward Waller