Tree falls through Durant home, narrowly missing residents

DURANT, Okla. (KXII) - Violent winds, hail, and lightning shook Texoma as severe storms rolled through Sunday evening.

Andreia McGinnis said she was giving her mom medicine when she heard a loud crackling sound at their Chaparral Drive, Durant home.

She didn’t know what to think. McGinnis said she thought it might be hail, or a tornado, but it was a tree branch-over 18 inches in diameter-puncturing through her wall and crashing into her mother’s room.

“In that moment of panic, something started coming through the wall,” McGinnis said. “And I grabbed my mom under her arms and dragged her off her bed into the hallway, cause I had no idea what was going on. Till the smoke cleared and we realized what happened.”

The tree was just feet away from McGinnis and her mother.

But that wasn’t the end of the damage to her home. The rain kept coming, and water began flooding in.

“Water started coming in from the rain into our living room, our bedroom,” McGinnis said. “And the bottom of the bathroom, the floor is cracked, for some reason water started pouring out of that, and the bathroom is flooded as well.”

“What do you do in this situation,” McGinnis said. “You have twins in bed. Now you’re raining inside the house. I have a person who belongs in the hospital bed, and it’s so late. What do you do? It’s very overwhelming.”

She said the fire department came and told her the home wasn’t safe to stay in, so McGinnis and her husband are working to move out with their two twin toddlers and McGinnis’s mom, who has ALS.

She said it’s scary.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen to this structure,” McGinnis said.

But they’re happy to be safe and sound.

McGinnis is now working with her tree service and insurance company to take down the rest of the tree before the next storm.

Copyright 2022 KXII. All rights reserved.