The Mertzon resident was driving home from San Angelo on Thursday on U.S. Highway 67, six miles east of the city, when the hailstone - as big as a baseball - hit her car. It smashed a hole in her back windshield, the first of four hailstones to punch through.

Desperate for shelter, Vanderburg pulled in to the parking lot of Tom and Esther Thorp, who live on the lot of their transport business, two miles east of Mertzon.

At least 120 homes might have been damaged, said Johnnie Gray, the city's lone local insurance agent, who lives in Sherwood, about five miles to the northeast. Mertzon residents have filed 68 claims with him thus far, he said.

The insurance adjuster estimated he covers 40 percent of Mertzon's property for Germania Farm Mutual, meaning the total number of claims for all insurance companies that cover the town could easily surpass 200.

With clouds again building in the background Friday afternoon, Esther Thorp stood to look at her vinyl siding, pockmarked with holes where hailstones had smashed through. Plastic covered her shattered kitchen and living room windows.

Damage from the storm doesn't approach that of the 1996 thunderstorm, which tore through Mertzon with high winds, heavy rain and large hail. A tornado destroyed at least one home, and most structures in the town suffered significant window and structure damage.

Windshields appeared to suffer the brunt of the storm, providing a boon for glass-repair shops in San Angelo, the closest city with such services.

Angelo Auto Glass expected Friday to double the number of windshields it usually replaces - with nearly all the vehicles driven from Mertzon and Christoval, which also was pelted with large hail Thursday night - and was making appointments for today, when the shop usually is closed.

Spring is a prime season for such storms, National Weather Service meteorologist Phil Baker said, because the jet stream that flows over Texas every winter brings cold air on top of the heat caused by the approaching summer.

Standing in front of his wife's battered car - which also sports a giant spiderweb crack across the windshield, incurred after she took refuge with the Thorps - Dan Vanderburg shook his head.

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