COFFEYVILLE, Kansas (AP) -- The flood is bad enough, engulfing homes to the rooftops and turning neighborhoods into floating junkyards of children's toys and family heirlooms.
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Floodwater surrounds a refinery in Coffeyville, Kansas, on Monday.
But the floodwaters here also carry some of the 42,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled from the Coffeyville Resources refinery on Sunday, coating everything they touch with a slimy, smelly layer of goo.
"My question is how are they going to get all that oil out of the environment," said Mary Burge, a heart surgery patient who was forced to breathe from her portable oxygen tank. The petroleum odor Monday was so strong it could be detected from helicopters passing overhead.
The oil spill, caused by a malfunction while the refinery was shutting down in advance of the flooding, has concerned federal and state officials as they monitor the slick's progress down the Verdigris River toward drinking water sources and recreation areas in Oklahoma.
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