Why is that with the faucets?
Water running thru a faucet that is just cracked open a little for an extended period will cut a groove in the seal that will leak.
I’ve seen creeks freeze over hard enough in Ohio that you could walk across them
Really hard to answer that question without the specifics.
That is why I have 5 propane heaters and 8 - 30 lb tanks.I have had to use them a few times in the .asthma 20 years.I now have a 12,500 genny,duel fuel that can run my furnace,freezers,lights.I have a natural gas stove and gas logs alzo.
When I was building and they still made metal sheet rock mud buckets and metal water meter cases.I thawed out several homes for people by placing the bucket on top of the lid with charcoal..Slow melting of their main water line.Can,t do that today with plastic SR buckets.
They probably weren't frozen solid to the stream bed depending on depth.
The one time in fifty years my well froze up was exactly that two inch long 1/4 inch nipple for the pressure switch was the problem.
They weren’t. I’d bust through in places to set muskrat traps.
That reminds me of a scary experience in Alaska. My hiking/camping buddy and I had to cross a frozen river (on foot, not in a vehicle) across ice of an unknown thickness.
We took it slow & careful with no problems. There was no snow on top of the ice, which is good. Snow acts as insulation meaning thinner ice. Once we got to the opposite shore, we noticed some spots of open water - where current might have been faster or whatever - along the bank not too far from where we crossed. We could hear water running pretty fast underneath the ice but couldn't see it. The holes were pretty big, so we stuck our heads into them to find out what the deal was. It was pretty interesting - below the layer of ice was a space of about two feet between the bottom of the ice and the surface of the river! The water was moving pretty fast. You could look all the way across the river to see the bank on the other side. You could look up & down stream until the river went around a bend and see the space. Apparently the level of the river had dropped a couple of feet recently and we had crossed the ice from the previous level.Yes, there was plenty of air to breath between the river and the ice once we were washed down to a shallower spot where we could reach the river bottom and stand up - assuming we even could against the current. But the hypothermia from the ultra-cold water would have killed us before we could have gotten out of the river. What way to go out! Falling through the ice but not drowning - just freezing to death trying to find open ice to escape back onto the solid ice and back to shore. Remember, we had no idea until we crossed that there were a few open spots here and there. And the river was only about 50 yards from a major highway! Cars would be going by all day, and nobody would know that two guys are freezing to death nearly within spitting distance from them.
I've seen that before. Not only streams but lakes.That reminds me of a scary experience in Alaska. My hiking/camping buddy and I had to cross a frozen river (on foot, not in a vehicle) across ice of an unknown thickness.
Then we thought about it: if we had fallen through the ice, we might have gotten washed downstream and away from the holes we fell through!
Tidal Potomac was pretty crazy, tide dropped and it sounded like a rifle shot from the ice cracking
Yes indeed, lakes all the time especially when ice fishing in the spring. As the ice starts melting it's a slushy, wet mess.
If a prolonged cold snap hits, the ice freezes up again, so there is "double layered" ice. Nothing like falling through the ice then suddenly stopping when you hit the bottom layer. 
I have lived in a house with a hand pump (bringing up well water I assume) hooked up to the kitchen sink when I was a teen in Wisconsin. Yes, we only had an outhouse there too.
Luckily, we didn't live in that house in the winter!
