Watch Chopper 4 footage of the damage in Lakewood, Wis.

BEVENT, Wis. (AP) -- Neighbors and friends loaded steel sheets that had once been Carol Zogata's pole shed onto a trailer Friday. The tornado that roared through her beef farm the night before toppled a silo and damaged another. An old barn was reduced to splinters and windows in her home were smashed.

Zogata looked forlorn as she surveyed the damage. Hours earlier, when she first saw the twisted mess, she cried.

"No thoughts on the future," she said, the din of a portable generator and sound of clanging steel nearly drowning out her voice. "Everything that we have worked for 30 years is gone."

The Zogata farm, about 25 miles southeast of Wausau, was one of the hardest hit by a tornado that cut a swath through southeast Marathon County on Thursday. It snapped off four acres of pine trees more than 100 years old, leaving nothing but tall stumps.

The National Weather Service said at least five tornadoes had touched down in central and northeast Wisconsin, including one that hit parts of Langlade, Menominee and Oconto counties. Only minor injuries were reported, but thousands were left without power.

"We're fortunate no one was killed," said Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter in Madison. Her agency was still compiling damage reports Friday afternoon.

One of the worst tornadoes in Wisconsin history hit Barneveld just after midnight on June 8, 1984, killing nine, injuring nearly 200 and causing $25 million worth of damage along its 36-mile path.

Thursday's twister flattened Irene Kukuczak's doublewide mobile home and detached garage in rural Bevent, spilling the contents across the countryside. Pink insulation, mixed with shredded branches, wrapped around a neighbor's mailbox. Trees were twisted and toppled. Broken boards mixed with wet clothes and papers littering the ground.

"We planted all these trees and stuff. It's just gone in a matter of seconds," said Kukuczak's 22-year-old son, Eric, as he stood in what used to be the garage. "It is just destruction. There's nothing left."

Still, he considered the family fortunate. His mother wasn't home when the tornado tore through. She had stayed late at work and arrived home within 10 minutes of the carnage.

"She was lucky," her son said.

Some 70 miles northeast, the 25-acre Bear Paw Outdoor Adventure Resort near White Lake in Langlade County -- a complex of 10 buildings that included cabins, a restaurant and a store -- was destroyed too, the owners said.

"Our restaurant's totally gone. There's maybe two walls standing," said co-owner Shirlee Roshe. "Our entire retail shop was blown across the road. Most of the merchandise was between the highway and the field on the other side of the highway."

At least one kayak was thrown more than 30 feet into the remnants of snapped pine trees.

"Most of our buildings are gone. I was just sickened," Roshe said.

Zogata's son, John, 28, saw the tornado coming toward his parents' farm as he finished fertilizing a field and drove the tractor into the yard.

What he thought were tree branches between sucked into the funnel were really mature pine trees from a neighbor's property -- and they had to be at least 300 feet in the air, John Zogata said, still stunned by the sight.

"I was in a panic. I didn't know what to do," he said. "The first thing I thought of was, 'Lord, please save me.'"

Then he thought of his wife, newborn baby and his grandmother in nearby homes. He rushed into a concrete block shed and rode out the storm with the family dog.

"I don't remember the sound of the tornado," Zogata said. "All I remember is the sound of tin coming off the silo and tin coming off the pole barn."

The shelter he sought suffered barely a scratch.

"If you don't believe in the power of prayer, think again," the cattleman said.

Only one of the farm's 40 beef cattle suffered a broken leg and had to be destroyed, John Zogata said.

Insurance adjusters hadn't arrived Friday morning, but the son estimated the damage would total at least $200,000.

Getter said the front that moved across Wisconsin was a powerful storm with baseball-size hail in Wisconsin Rapids and many reports of funnel clouds. But overall, the state was lucky.

"Either they didn't touch down or they touched down very quickly and went right back up," she said.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)