Texas toilet starts gushing oil

Woman returns to crude-covered home

Kevin Green / Longview News-Journal via AP

Crude oil covers the commode in Leila LeTourneau's Spring Hill, Texas, home, Feb. 2.

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updated 11:11 a.m. ET Feb. 5, 2004

LONGVIEW, Texas - A Texas woman has struck oil — or maybe it struck her.

Leila LeTourneau returned from work late Monday to find crude oil covering her home’s floors and spilling from the toilets, bathtub and sinks.

Experts have told her the oil kind of “burped up.”

Story continues below ↓

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Longview city crews and representatives from Basa Research, which owns some wells in the area, are trying to help find the source of the oil.

Local station KLTV reported one theory is that the house may have been built on an abandoned well that wasn’t properly plugged.

“I always tease people about ’doesn’t everybody in Texas have an oil derrick in the back yard?’ Then when I came home I discovered I struck oil inside the house,” LeTourneau said.

She and her son are now staying at a hotel.