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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.A pumping malfunction during the weekend 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 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 the homes in Independence had been evacuated, he said, and water intakes for Coffeyville, Independence and Elk City had been shut down."Until the river starts receding, all we can do is monitor the situation," Miller said."We're very concerned. It's chemicals mixed with water," said Coffeyville Mayor Virgil Horn, whose own home was submerged.The oil was floating downriver toward Oklahoma and that state's Oologah Lake, about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa, said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the Kansas state adjutant.Oklahoma officials were optimistic the spill would dissipate before it reached the lake, which provides flood control, drinking water and recreation.The Verdigris River was more than 17 feet above flood stage at Independence at midday Monday and probably about 11 feet above flood stage at Coffeyville, said Janet Spurgeon, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Wichita. Forecasters don't expect the river to fall below flood stage until early next week, she said.Elsewhere in Kansas, residents of Osawatomie were waiting for Pottawatomie Creek and the Marais des Cygnes River to recede.Forty percent of its 4,600 residents evacuated Sunday. As in the days of Noah...
