ISOM, Ky. — The only full-scale grocery store in Letcher County was ravaged by flood waters in July 2022. The family-owned store has since reopened, but it wasn’t easy.
For Eastern Kentuckians, every aspect of life was affected by last year’s historic flash flooding. Lives were lost, homes were swept away and vital businesses were shutdown.
In Isom, a family-owned grocery store was shuttered for 9 months.
Delivery day is the busiest day of the week at Isom IGA. That’s when longtime employee Michelle Maggard and the entire staff restock the shelves. Maggard is going on 13 years working at the store and everyday she is grateful every to be back at work.
“For those who work here and for those who shop here, we’ve always been like a family. So having the family back together again is pretty amazing,” Maggard said.
One year ago, the nearby Troublesome Creek overtook the family-owned and operated grocery store.
“I am right at 6-foot-3, and the water was right at 7, 7-and-a-half feet,” Simon Christon explains. “And that was throughout the entire store, from the back room up to the double-doors up front.”
Christon’s parents, Gwen and Arthur, own the store. The 25-year-old grew up perusing IGA’s aisles, and after college, returned to help his parents run it.
It’s the only full-scale grocery store in this part of Letcher County, where the families living in these winding hollers buy their food. Flash flooding devastated much of the area.
“Two of our neighbors just held on to our pine tree in our backyard because they got washed out from their house,” Simon Christon recalled. “And it wasn’t until a few days after the flood that it really set in that this is real, because you’re kind of in shock.”
The family and the community held together, though the grocery store was shuttered.
“That first 24 or 48 hours, my first concern, in all honesty, was: Well, if the store is gone, a lot of our employees live this way. Are they OK? What has happened with their houses?” Christon said. “Honestly, at that point, we as a family could have cared less about the actual store and just started worrying about our people and our team.”
Once the water receded and clean-up efforts inside the store were paused, Gwen Christon volunteered the parking lot to host a donation and pickup site.
“They asked me if I would take over the distribution of food and water, since that’s what I do for a living. That’s what I love to do. I’ve got to take care of my community,” Gwen Christon said back in Aug. 2022.
Nearly one year later, we returned. “I’m doing good. I really am. Little tired, but that’s OK,” she said.
Christon is marking more than one anniversary because August is the 50th anniversary Christon began her career at Isom IGA.
“I started to work here in Aug. 1973,” Christon said.
Isom IGA reopened her store on April 1, 2023, returning an essential business to a community still rebuilding.
“People are still struggling. It’s really hard. We’re in a poverty-stricken area and we were only living month-to-month anyway,” she said.
But there is hope in Isom, and pride in these hollers and pride in the aisles of this store, and in the faces of the customers added to the walls.
“The photos wrapping around the store, going all the way around the store, the black and white portraits, they are all 100% local,” Simon Christon said.
They are portraits taken by a homegrown photographer, Matthew Wilson. It’s an homage to what makes a tight-knit community so special, a belief that sticking together in times of crisis makes you unbreakable.
Gwen Christon said her family will always be thankful for the help, support and prayers.
“We had everything coming into our area and we are very thankful for that,” she said. “I would also like them to know we are still here. We are still working, trying to be good citizens.”