Massive trees fall through 88-year-old woman’s Madison County home

BURTON — An 88-year-old woman and her son are lucky to be alive after two massive trees crashed through their home Thursday evening.

Nancy Hinckley was inside the house on South 5000 West in Burton when she heard a loud noise around 6:45 p.m.

“My mom was in her bedroom and my brother was in the living room when a microburst came through,” Hinckley’s son, Corey Hinckley, tells EastIdahoNews.com. “The wind took down three Cottonwood trees and two of them landed on the house.”

Nancy called Corey and told him what happened. He drove over to his mother’s house and was shocked to see his childhood home destroyed.

“It smashed right through the roof and took out our house. My mom was in shock and it’s amazing nobody was killed,” Corey Hinckley explains.

Corey says the house was built in 1939 and his mother has lived there since the early 1960s.

Madison County experienced thunderstorms and heavy winds Thursday night with a Rexburg–Madison County Airport weather station measuring a 52 mph wind gust around 7:30 p.m., according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Andrew McKaughan.

“A microburst can produce damage comparable to a weak tornado. Some have reached speeds up to 100 mph but they are generally lower than that,” McKaughan says. “Microbursts are very difficult to forecast. They’re basically localized columns of sinking air that hit the surface of the ground and spread outward in a circular pattern.”

There were no reports of damage to other homes or structures but Nancy’s home is likely a complete loss. She is staying with her daughter as the Hinckleys figure out a more permanent plan.

“The most important thing is that nobody lost their lives. It’s miraculous, really,” Corey Hinckley says.