Residents celebrate business owner's comeback after weather disaster
Months ago, this small town with a population barely over 4,000, was hit with one of the year's worst weather disasters and the owner, as well as the community's residents, just took a huge step forward.
By
Monica Danielle, AccuWeather Managing Editor
Published Dec 20, 2021 3:01 PM EDT
|
Updated Dec 21, 2021 3:44 PM EDT
Waverly Cash Saver owner John Curtis said he and his team have been working 12- to 14-hour days to get the grocery store back up and running.
A flooded grocery story has been brought back to life just in time for Christmas in Tennessee. Waverly's only neighborhood supermarket is finally open four months after the town's Trace Creek was swelled by record-shattering rainfall. Raging floodwaters quickly overwhelmed the area, killing at least 20.
According to the National Weather Service office in Nashville shortly after the storm, more than 17 inches of rain fell in nearby McEwen on Aug. 21, likely breaking the state's 24-hour rainfall record. After further investigation, the record high 24-hour rainfall was confirmed on Dec. 21 but was recalculated to be 20.73 inches. Much of the rain that fell near McEwen flowed down to Waverly, a small town of a little more than 4,000 people that's about 70 miles west of Nashville. Waverly sits several hundred feet lower than McEwen, which made the water that rushed in all the more devastating.
Entire neighborhoods were washed away by the floodwaters.
The hard-hit Waverly Cash Saver Food Store was just one of the dozens of businesses impacted by the flood. Still, it took only two days for Curtis and his partner to decide they’d rebuild. When word spread that they were rebuilding, residents pitched in to help with people volunteering to help clean up and others delivering food.
At the beginning of September, the store was dark and damaged. Curtis told AccuWeather National Reporter Jillian Angeline that he and his team worked 12- to 14-hour days since the flood to get the store back up and running and get food back on the shelves.
“We took all inventory, shelving, cases down to the stud walls," Curtis said. "And that was a four-week process and then we started cleanup, which was another couple weeks.”
Over the course of the next few months, the family renovated, rebuilt, rewired and restocked the only grocery store in town. Residents monitoring the progress were excited to see the store reopen.
Waverly Cash Saver bustling with customers after reopening (Christy Curtis)
Curtis said the ordeal was grueling but in the process of rebuilding the store, they also built stronger bonds with each other and the community.
“The biggest strain on a marriage is building a house. So probably one of the biggest strains on a partnership or a family partnership is doing what we’ve done and going through what we’ve done. But I would say our families are a lot closer,” Curtis said.
Some of the very same employees who were trapped in the store when the wall of water came rushing in are back, determined to face their new reality head-on. Karen Clark almost died when floodwaters ripped through the building, but she was saved by two quick-acting men.
Co-owner of Waverly Cash Saver, John Curtis, helps an employee with her register. (AccuWeather/Jillian Angeline)
"I would have definitely went under because the water got way over our heads and it happened so fast. There were times we felt we were going to have to go through the roof,” she recalled.
For Clark, the reopening is bittersweet. While the business is much-needed for the community, especially in time for Christmas, she is missing store regulars she'll never see again.
“Knowing that there’s customers that won’t be able to come back into the store and faces that you’re not going to see.”
In the town of just over 4,000 people, everybody knows everybody, 17-year-old Sadie Vaughn told AccuWeather immediately after the flooding, which means just about everyone knows someone who died.
But, amid the loss and heartbreak, John Curtis said he believes in his community's resilience and the store's future.
“It will come back. People care too much about each other for it not to.”
Reporting by Jillian Angeline.
For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.
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News / Business
Residents celebrate business owner's comeback after weather disaster
Months ago, this small town with a population barely over 4,000, was hit with one of the year's worst weather disasters and the owner, as well as the community's residents, just took a huge step forward.
By Monica Danielle, AccuWeather Managing Editor
Published Dec 20, 2021 3:01 PM EDT | Updated Dec 21, 2021 3:44 PM EDT
Waverly Cash Saver owner John Curtis said he and his team have been working 12- to 14-hour days to get the grocery store back up and running.
A flooded grocery story has been brought back to life just in time for Christmas in Tennessee. Waverly's only neighborhood supermarket is finally open four months after the town's Trace Creek was swelled by record-shattering rainfall. Raging floodwaters quickly overwhelmed the area, killing at least 20.
According to the National Weather Service office in Nashville shortly after the storm, more than 17 inches of rain fell in nearby McEwen on Aug. 21, likely breaking the state's 24-hour rainfall record. After further investigation, the record high 24-hour rainfall was confirmed on Dec. 21 but was recalculated to be 20.73 inches. Much of the rain that fell near McEwen flowed down to Waverly, a small town of a little more than 4,000 people that's about 70 miles west of Nashville. Waverly sits several hundred feet lower than McEwen, which made the water that rushed in all the more devastating.
Entire neighborhoods were washed away by the floodwaters.
The hard-hit Waverly Cash Saver Food Store was just one of the dozens of businesses impacted by the flood. Still, it took only two days for Curtis and his partner to decide they’d rebuild. When word spread that they were rebuilding, residents pitched in to help with people volunteering to help clean up and others delivering food.
At the beginning of September, the store was dark and damaged. Curtis told AccuWeather National Reporter Jillian Angeline that he and his team worked 12- to 14-hour days since the flood to get the store back up and running and get food back on the shelves.
“We took all inventory, shelving, cases down to the stud walls," Curtis said. "And that was a four-week process and then we started cleanup, which was another couple weeks.”
Over the course of the next few months, the family renovated, rebuilt, rewired and restocked the only grocery store in town. Residents monitoring the progress were excited to see the store reopen.
Waverly Cash Saver bustling with customers after reopening (Christy Curtis)
Curtis said the ordeal was grueling but in the process of rebuilding the store, they also built stronger bonds with each other and the community.
“The biggest strain on a marriage is building a house. So probably one of the biggest strains on a partnership or a family partnership is doing what we’ve done and going through what we’ve done. But I would say our families are a lot closer,” Curtis said.
Some of the very same employees who were trapped in the store when the wall of water came rushing in are back, determined to face their new reality head-on. Karen Clark almost died when floodwaters ripped through the building, but she was saved by two quick-acting men.
Co-owner of Waverly Cash Saver, John Curtis, helps an employee with her register. (AccuWeather/Jillian Angeline)
"I would have definitely went under because the water got way over our heads and it happened so fast. There were times we felt we were going to have to go through the roof,” she recalled.
For Clark, the reopening is bittersweet. While the business is much-needed for the community, especially in time for Christmas, she is missing store regulars she'll never see again.
“Knowing that there’s customers that won’t be able to come back into the store and faces that you’re not going to see.”
In the town of just over 4,000 people, everybody knows everybody, 17-year-old Sadie Vaughn told AccuWeather immediately after the flooding, which means just about everyone knows someone who died.
But, amid the loss and heartbreak, John Curtis said he believes in his community's resilience and the store's future.
“It will come back. People care too much about each other for it not to.”
Reporting by Jillian Angeline.
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For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.
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