Answered for McCordsville, Hancock County.
Current passed through the tree, superheated the moisture in its path, and blew tissue apart under steam pressure. The outcome depends on where the current traveled. Along the outside under the bark, and the tree loses a stripe of cambium and often survives. Through the middle of the trunk, and the wood is fractured internally and the tree is finished whether or not it leafs out next spring. From the ground on the day of the strike you cannot tell which happened. So a struck tree is two things at once: an immediate physical hazard from loose bark and cracked limbs, and a medium-term unknown. In McCordsville — Bay Creek, Emerald Springs and Gateway Crossing included, that's normally a storm damage cleanup job at $400–$4,000. Within days.
McCordsville was platted in 1865 but only incorporated in 1988, and virtually all of its housing is newer than the millennium: 684 residents in 1990, 1,134 in 2000, 4,797 in 2010 and 8,503 in 2020. From that build-out pattern the typical McCordsville tree should be subdivision nursery stock planted since about 2003 — young-tree pruning, storm righting and warranty-era replacement rather than the large takedowns older suburbs need.
The canopy is almost entirely developer plantings on former corn and soybean ground, young enough that overall cover is thin compared with older Indianapolis suburbs; the genuinely large trees are leftovers — fencerow and creek-bottom hardwoods along Fall Creek and toward Geist, plus the yard trees around the 1865 village core. McCordsville was not in the Indiana DNR street tree sample and has no published inventory; note that Callery pear, heavily used in subdivisions of this vintage, was still legal to sell in Indiana as of 2026 despite a pending proposal to ban it.
There is no general McCordsville permit for removing a tree on private property, and Indiana has no statewide requirement — but there is a reported exception worth checking before quoting a job: in platted tree conservation areas, any tree 6 inches DBH or larger is a "Protected Tree" and may not be removed unless it is dead, diseased or damaged, or removal is needed for a government safety requirement or specified infrastructure. That provision could not be verified against a retrievable copy of the code, so confirm it with the town. Many McCordsville subdivisions also have HOA covenants layered on top.
McCordsville is unusually explicit here: under § 154.119 no one may plant a tree or allow one to grow in a dedicated public right-of-way except within a designated street tree corridor established by the town, and no tree may be planted or allowed to grow above underground utilities at all. Within those designated corridors the Town holds the power to maintain, remove and replace the trees and plantings. The section text is unverified — confirm before planting or removing in the strip.
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Distance measured from McCordsville.