ROME — A powerful storm with high winds and hail bigger than golf balls Thursday night clobbered homes in the area of Route 225 and Crystal Springs Lane, breaking windows, damaging vehicles and sending trees crashing down on buildings.

“I’ve been here 73 years — I just turned 73 Aug. 2 — and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Harold Hawes, who lives at the corner of Route 225 and Crystal Springs Lane. “My wife was so scared last night, she didn’t know which way to go.”

The Hawes’ home lFriday morning looked like it had been hit with a machine gun. The siding was riddled with pock marks; screens, windows and skylights weree broken; and a pear tree outside sat bereft of fruit, as the little pears had been blown 200 feet across the lawn in the storm.

Hawes, a Rome selectman and former road commissioner, said an insurance adjuster visited Friday morning and said the home would have to beoverhauled with a new roof, siding and windows.

Piles of hail a little smaller than golf balls were all around the outside of the house — even 18 hours after the storm.

Harold Hawes’ body shop next door also was hit. Lights on the building were smashed, the roof was blown off an old Model A car parked in the lot, and 10 cars suffered broken windshields and had little dents all over the fenders and roofs.

Farther down the lane, on Great Pond, a large hemlock tree had crashed into a camp, breaking open the roof. The owner, a Massachusetts man, had just renovated the camp, according to neighbors. He was traveling back to Maine Friday to oversee repairs, they said. Watch the audio slideshow.