MILLBURY, Ohio — Nathaniel Lender scampered in flip-flops across a plywood floor that was the only part of his house not ripped away by a tornado.
"Have you seen my trampoline?" he asked his mom after spotting a shredded hockey net covered by pieces of splintered wood.
"It's over there," she answered, pointing toward a clump of debris wrapped around a backyard fence post.
Up and down their street in the northwest Ohio village of Millbury, homeowners, friends and strangers sifted through lawns and fields Monday, looking for little reminders of what life was like before a tornado flattened their homes.
What they found gave them a bit of hope: a waterlogged Bible, a Little League baseball trophy, an elementary school yearbook.
Five people died in the tornado that was Ohio's strongest in eight years, part of a line of storms that ripped through the Midwest over the weekend, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services building in northwest Ohio.
Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer revised the death toll downward Monday from seven to five, saying some victims were apparently double-counted.
At least 15 tornadoes touched down in Illinois, injuring more than 30 people and ripping off a movie theater roof. Storms in Michigan tore siding off a nuclear plant, forcing a shutdown.
But the worst destruction was in northwest Ohio, where a tornado left a strip up to 300 yards wide and 10 miles long littered with wrecked vehicles and family possessions.
Among the victims — all in Ohio — were a mother and her 4-year-old son and the father of a high school valedictorian who had been preparing to address her classmates Sunday, just a few hours after the tornado swept through with wind gusts of 136-165 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
It rated a 3 on a 0-5 scale for measuring tornadoes, with 5 being the most severe, the weather service said.
The high school took a direct hit and was a total loss, and at least 50 homes were destroyed. It's likely more will be condemned in the community southeast of Toledo. Damage could top $100 million, Wood County emergency management director Brad Gilbert said Monday.
A tornado earlier had touched down and destroyed several homes west of Toledo in Fulton County, the weather service said, before skipping over the heavily populated suburbs on the southern edge of the city and coming down again in Millbury.