FINDLAY, Ohio — Peeking into her waterlogged basement, Gail Leatherman didn't break down until she saw a soggy photo of her and her husband, taken for their 17th wedding anniversary.
She salvaged the picture but not her treasured Christmas decorations. Next door, her son lost all of his 1-year-old boy's winter clothes.
And that wasn't the worst of it.
"A year ago, our insurer told us we could drop our flood insurance," she said. "So we did."
Water from the worst flood in nearly a century in this northwest Ohio city began receding Thursday, as it did elsewhere in the Midwest, allowing some of the more than 1,000 homeowners who had been displaced to get a look at the soaked photo albums, boxes of clothes and furniture in their basements.
With the flooding and more storms moving through, the death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week also rose to at least 26. In one Ohio county alone, the tally of damaged homes was more than 700.
The weather wasn't through with the region, however, as funnel clouds were spotted in the suburbs west of Chicago and storms lashed Iowa and Minnesota.
In Oklahoma City, authorities searched a muddy, swollen lake for a 17-year-old caught in a current Wednesday when he and other members of his high school cross country team tried to swim across a flooded trail.
Storms rattled and soaked northern and west-central Illinois, knocking down trees and damaging buildings and adding to the rising water in several rivers, which crews rushed to sandbag. A roof collapsed at the dock area of an industrial building in the suburbs, injuring 40 people but none seriously, police said.
In southwestern Wisconsin, the National Guard pumped water to relieve pressure on at least one dam, said Mike Goetzman, a spokesman for Wisconsin Emergency Management. The earthen dam suffered erosion earlier this week when water from weekend thunderstorms overflowed it.
Firefighters in Wheatland, Wis., had a hard time putting out a house fire because the building was surrounded by flood water, authorities said. They had to take small boats out with pumps and draft from the surrounding water. No one was injured and the cause had yet to be determined.
Even in spots where the storms had passed, the intense sun prompted a heat advisory, with temperatures expected to hit the upper 90s throughout Ohio. Cincinnati schools closed because of the heat for the first time in at least 10 years.
In Findlay, hundreds of residents were making their way home a day after firefighters and volunteers in boats and canoes navigated waist-deep water to rescue people and pets. Generators hummed as residents pumped out water; it was too soon to start cleaning up the debris.
Some residents were still stuck in a shelter where 200 people slept Wednesday night. They were among those who had a foot or more of water in their homes.
John Treece could wade to only within a block of his home and saw water still covering the porch. His basement flooded in January, but it was nothing like this.
"We thought that would be the worst case scenario," Treece said.
He and his wife didn't have insurance. "We couldn't afford it," he said. "I'm out of work."
Gov. Ted Strickland had declared nine Ohio counties to be in a state of emergency, making flood victims there eligible for a maximum of $1,500 per family.
Findlay, a city of 40,000, is a mix of factories and small businesses and home to Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.
In a neighborhood a few blocks from the Blanchard River, water pumped out of homes rushed down the streets.
Leatherman put together a contraption of plastic tubes and hoses to draw water from her basement, which gave off the stench of sewage. She and her husband will likely drain their retirement savings to replace the furnace and water heater.
"We're not alone in this," she said as sweated dripped from her glasses in the 90-degree heat. "Everybody's suffering."
Floodwater still filled a few downtown stores near the river. Water rose through a crawl space and buckled the floor at Uncle Buck's, a Mardi Gras-themed bar with a Hurricane Katrina souvenir T-shirt hanging on the wall.
The damage surprised Larry MacKenzie, who was helping the bar's manager with the cleanup.
"I was thinking it would take only a few days," he said. "But it may be a couple of weeks."