Oil spill swamps saturated Midwest

COFFEYVILLE, KAN. — An oil spill added to the misery caused by widespread flooding Monday as thousands of evacuees in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas waited for water to recede from their homes.

Kansas got a break from the weather Monday, but more rain was scattered over Texas and eastern Oklahoma, the latest in nearly two weeks of storms. It was the 20th straight day that rain had fallen in Oklahoma City.

“It’s such a dynamic situation,” said Parker County, Texas, spokesman Joel Kertok. “We get a break and then it starts raining again.”

A pumping malfunction allowed 42,000 gallons of crude oil to escape from the Coffeyville Resources refinery into the swollen Verdigris River in south-central Kansas, producing a floating slick that could be seen and smelled from the air. The goo coated pets, possessions and emergency workers. The federal Environmental Protection Agency had teams on the scene, said Jim Miller, Montgomery County emergency manager. About a third of the homes in Coffeyville and a quarter of homes in Independence had been evacuated, he said.