Most Hutto mold jobs go back to one wet event the house never fully dried out from. Brushy Creek is the first. On Memorial Day, May 25, 2015, people living along the creek east of FM 685 were asked to leave their homes, and NOAA’s storm events database records property damage and a death in Hutto that day. In October 2010, houses along the US 79 corridor and around County Road 123 took water too. After creek water, the carpet gets pulled and the floor looks fine, but the drywall behind the baseboard drinks water upward. The EPA’s advice is to dry wet materials within 24 to 48 hours. Past that, mold has the time it needs.
The second is the February 2021 freeze. The City of Hutto put out a boil-water notice on Feb. 17, 2021, because it was drawing from another local water system, and did not lift it until 4:31 p.m. on Feb. 23, after TCEQ testing. Hutto ISD reported water damage at four campuses, including Hutto High School and Cottonwood Creek Elementary. A pipe that split in a Hutto attic that week was cleaned up without safe tap water. If the ceiling was patched and never opened, it is worth a moisture reading now.
The third is the age of the houses. Census figures for 2020 to 2024 put 42.7 percent of Hutto’s homes in the 2000s, 31.1 percent in the 2010s and 20.1 percent in 2020 or later. Houses this young rarely grow mold from age. They grow it after a single event: a creek, a freeze, a hidden leak, or a storm like the March 21, 2022 tornado at Cottonwood Farms off Limmer Loop and CR 119, where rain came through damaged roofs into attic insulation.