If you don't know, there was a lot of tragedy in the small resort town of Times Beach here in Missouri. 

I don't want to bring you down, but here's the gist.  Times Beach is a ghost town outside of St Louis. It used to have a population of about 2500. The town was completely evacuated early in 1983 due to dioxin contamination. I couldn't really get a clear, layman definition of what dioxin is, but it's bad. Like, it'll kill you bad.  It was the largest civilian exposure to dioxin in the country's history.

I'll admit I'm a little slow and I'm trying to simplify what happened, but a big company called NEPACCO  had some waste, they sold it to a local guy, who re sold it to other people who used it to try to cut down on dust in the roads. Soon birds and animals were dying, and people were getting very sick - headaches, nosebleeds, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.  The CDC got involved, the EPA got involved...and then tragedy struck.  Times Beach had the worst flood they'd ever seen, in some places the water was as high as 14 feet.  The town didn't have a choice, they had to evacuate, the water was spreading the toxins everywhere.

That was thirty years ago.  Now, Times Beach is called the Route 66 State Park, and you can go there.  I mean, I wouldn't (Even though I read that the toxins only have like, a half life of eight or ten years).  But I saw on YouTube that a guy did, and brought his drone, so you can see what Times Beach is like now.

It's always pretty neat to look at these abandoned ghost towns, although the story of how it came to be is very tragic.  Maybe we can learn a little from all of this and never repeat something like it.

Have you been to any abandoned buildings or areas?

Exploringly yours,
Behka

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