Photo courtesy of J. Pinnock | Video: Peggy Jeppesen, EastIdahoNews.com

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

Nancy Hinckley was at 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 the microburst came through,” Hinckley’s son, Corey Hinckley, told EastIdahoNews.com. “The wind knocked down three cottonwood trees and two of them landed on the house.”

Nancy called Corey and told him what had happened. He drove to his mother’s house and was shocked to see that his parents’ house was destroyed.

“It broke through the roof and destroyed our house. My mother was in shock and it’s unbelievable that no one was killed,” explains Corey Hinckley.

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

According to meteorologist Andrew McKaughan of the National Weather Service, thunderstorms and strong winds occurred in Madison County overnight from Thursday to Sunday. A weather station at the Rexburg-Madison County Airport measured a wind gust of 84 km/h at around 7:30 p.m.

“A microburst can cause damage comparable to that of a weak tornado. Some have reached speeds of up to 100 mph, but generally they are lower,” says McKaughan. “Microbursts are very difficult to predict. They are essentially localized columns of descending air that hit the Earth’s surface and spread outward in a circular pattern.”

There were no reports of damage to other homes or buildings, but Nancy’s house is likely a total loss. She is staying with her daughter while the Hinckleys work out a more permanent plan.

“The most important thing is that no one lost their life. It’s truly a miracle,” says Corey Hinckley.