ELKVIEW, W.Va. — A little bit of normalcy is returning to the Elkview community in northern Kanawha County where the locally-owned grocery store, Smith’s Foodfair on Route 119, reopened at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning for the first time since the June 23 flood.
“It’s a great thing to be back in the store,” said Randy Cox, store manager and longtime Foodfair employee, as he stood at the service counter in the bright, white store amid sparkling floors and neatly stocked shelves.
Close to nine weeks ago, nearly three feet of water was pouring through the store.
“Everything floated off of the aisles. Food was piled up all down the aisles. It was in bad shape, (there was) a lot of mud.” In his nearly 39 years at Foodfair, “The water had never been up that high,” Cox said.
“We’re glad you’re back,” shouted one customer at Cox as he talked with MetroNews.
It was a sentiment many customers repeated.
“It’s wonderful. It’s so nice to have them back,” said Lisa Miller, an Elkview resident, who stopped in to grab a few items.
To the north of Elkview, the Clendenin Foodfair, washed out by the historically high Elk River in June, remained closed Wednesday and there was no target reopening date.
“They’re saying it’ll be several months, at least,” said Pam Smith, a Clay resident who had worked in Clendenin up until the storms and was behind the cash register in Elkview on Wednesday.
Dray Hernandez is a Clendenin resident and a Foodfair employee at the Clendenin store as well. “It’s not looking too good down there,” he said.
For the past more than two months, he’s been working at Foodfairs in both Elkview and Big Chimney.
“We’ve been really working our butts off, trying to get everything fixed and trying to get this place back open to get people some food more nearby since there’s not many things around,” he said.
“We’ve been catching hours where we can,” said Hernandez whose home was not flooded.
Since the storms, cleanup and restoration work has been the focus of Foodfair employees and that work continued even as shoppers filled their carts with bread, pasta and vegetables Wednesday.
“We are probably up to about 80, 85 percent good, but we are still a work in progress, so we’re going to get it done,” Cox said.
Before Wednesday, grocery store runs for people in Elkview and in communities to the north have largely involved trips to Big Chimney or, in many cases, Charleston.
Of the shoppers, “It’s really good to be able to help them again get their groceries,” Cox said.
When Smith arrived at work for the Elkview opening Wednesday, “I was happy. Finally, maybe everything will start falling back into place,” she said.