Insight: Mayflower, meet Exxon: When oil spilled in an Arkansas town

Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter’s 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong. After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he immediately dialed 911. "I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got a river of oil coming down the street at me," Andrews told the operator. Five minutes later, the slick of noxious black crude spewing from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline was eight feet wide, six inches deep and growing fast.