Kansas City, Mo. ? Crews worked Sunday to restore power to tens of thousands of people left in the dark when thunderstorms swept across western Missouri and eastern Kansas, generating wind gusts of up to 75 mph, spawning several tornadoes and contributing to at least one fatal traffic accident and a drowning.

Besides knocking out power, Saturday’s storms caused the cancellation of the last round of the Bayer Advantage Celebrity Pro-Am after the golf course was declared unplayable when strong winds knocked over tents and trees. Bunkers were littered with debris and several television towers were toppled.

Wind gusts were so strong on Missouri’s Truman Lake that a 16-foot boat was swamped by large waves. The body of the boat’s owner, 40-year-old Vance Wiles, of Willard, was found Sunday, washed up along the shore just west of the dam. Another man who was fishing with Wiles made it to shore, the Missouri State Water Patrol said.

A 4-year-old Clarkton girl, Makayla Harrison, died in a four-car accident Saturday on a Dunklin County road one mile north of Clarkton. The Missouri State Highway Patrol said she was a passenger in one of three cars that were stopped on the road because of poor visibility. A fourth car hit the car Makayla was in, causing a chain-reaction accident.

Residents lose power

During the storm, about 64,000 Kansas City Power and Light customers in the Kansas City area, about 30,000 Westar Energy customers in Topeka, Kan., and Wichita, Kan., and about 25,000 Aquila customers in northwest Missouri and northern Kansas City suburbs experienced power outages.

By 8 p.m. Sunday, KCP&L spokesman Tom Robinson said, the power was back on for about 85 percent of the utility’s customers in the Kansas City area.

“That’s pretty remarkable, considering the storm isn’t 24 hours old yet,” Robinson said.

Crews from Oklahoma arrived Sunday afternoon, he said, with several more from southwest Missouri expected in the evening.

Curt Hoolbar takes a break from cutting his wheat crop near Wichita to watch a tornado pass to his northeast. The tornado Saturday went on to damage homes near the town of Mulvane.

“The target is to get everybody restored by afternoon,” he said.

Westar started Sunday with about 14,000 customers in 11 counties without electricity, but crews had reduced that number to 200 in Wichita and 4,500 in Topeka by about 5 p.m., said company spokeswoman Gina Penzig. She said the company hoped to have power restored to everyone in Wichita and cut the number of Topeka residents without power in half by dark Sunday. All customers should have power by this evening at the latest, she said.

Aquila had restored power to all but about 1,500 customers in the St. Joseph area, a total of 3,000 in the Liberty and Platte City area and a scattered few in Lee’s Summit, said spokesman George Minter. Crews were to work throughout Sunday night, he said.

Strong winds

The storms spawned at least six tornadoes south of Wichita. The twisters destroyed three homes and damaged 13-15 others, overturned cars and downed power lines near Mulvane in Sumner County. In Missouri, several funnel clouds were reported in the northwest as the storm moved into the state from extreme southeastern Nebraska. And in southwest Missouri, a twister touched down briefly over open fields in Jasper County causing no structural damage, said Evan Bookbinder, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield.

But the wind did more damage than the tornadoes. Gusts of 70 to 80 mph felled large tree limbs and snapped some trees in half, said Matt Wolters, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka.

The winds also knocked down a highway patrol communications tower behind the patrol’s office in Topeka, but the damage didn’t affect patrol communications.

Lightning illuminates the sky above the ADM Collingwood Grain elevator as storms move across south-central Kansas. Strong storms Sunday surrounded the grain elevator in Hutchinson.

“It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” Wolters said, “just typical springtime weather in the state of Kansas.”

In Missouri, the winds were so strong that there were reports of pickup trucks lifted off the ground in Nodaway County.

Hail, flooding

The hail, which reached tennis-ball size in Bethany, Mo., also wreaked havoc. There were reports that the hail was so deep near Tarkio, that snow plows were used to clear the streets, said Lisa Schmit, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Pleasant Hill.

Tornadoes strike across state; home destroyed near Mulvane (6-13-04)

There were some reports of flash flooding in parts of Kansas and Missouri, but Schmit called it “relatively minor in comparison to wind and hail.”

Thunderstorms remained in the forecast throughout most of the week in Kansas and Missouri. Although widespread severe weather wasn’t expected, heavy rain was possible. Schmit said a flood watch was in effect across parts of eastern Kansas and northwest Missouri through Tuesday.