News In Brief

Times Beach residents mark the flood of '82

About 200 former residents who were driven from their homes by dioxin contamination tossed flowers into the Meramec River to mark the anniversary of a flood that was the beginning of the end of Times Beach.

The Meramec a year ago flooded and wrecked hundreds of Times Beach homes. Shortly after the flooded, the federal government said the community 25 miles southwest of St. Louis was contaminated by dioxin and warned the population of 2 ,300 to stay away. The streets had been sprayed a decade earlier with oil tainted by dioxin. In January, the government announced an unprecedented $33 million buyout of the entire town.