Community icon, the Hunt Store, destroyed in Kerr Co. flood
The Hunt Store isn't just a shop. It's a restaurant. A music venue. A gathering place.
'We were here almost every single day,' said Tyler Ward, a Hunt resident. 'And if we weren't, the kids were begging in the back seat of the car to come here.'
Looking at it, the community staple is barely a frame of what it once was, but the spirit it embodies is still very much in tact.
'Broken, confused,' Ward said, when describing how he felt looking at the damage. 'But the third word is the most important, and that's hope.'
Folks rearranged the letters in the store's signage to write 'Hunt Strong.' A close friend of the owner's placed flowers behind the caution tape.
'This was the center of the community,' said Doug Hill, whose wife lost her water well business in the flood. Even though he's knee deep in that cleanup, he made it a point to stop by the Hunt Store Monday.
Even in the shop's absence, people continued to pack the property's parking lot. It became a home base for things like food and water, or even just a hug or a friendly conversation.
KXAN received the following fundraiser pages from community members related to people with connections to Hunt:
Hunt Store recovery fund
Kennedy Family
'I have no words to describe what happened here,' Ward said. 'We're going to come back stronger than ever.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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