KELLY — The Kelly General Store is usually thrumming with business all through the day, and people of the community like to come to outside on a bench and chat.
Even in the aftermath of hurricanes, it is the place to get the pulse on this community of about 200 in southern Bladen County.
The coronavirus is different.
Those bench seats are eerily empty, many people seeming to have heeded the instructions of Gov. Roy Cooper and health experts to stay home.
A mother in her pickup rolls in on this morning, sets down a gas can to get five dollars of gas, and considers a cold drink.
“I think it’s a lot safer,” Toni Agrella says. “Honestly, we pretty much just stick to ourselves. We don’t really go out.”
Agrella said that if she does have to go somewhere, it’s usually this corner store about 24 miles from the county seat, where Natmore Road intersects with N.C. 53 and people connect over a quick bite to eat or while shopping for hardware or something they need and for which they don’t want to “go to town.”
“Business is down but we are busy cleaning a lot,” Charles Russ says. “Every time we get a break we are cleaning all the doors, the door handles — it’s been kind of stressful.”
Kelly was hammered by Hurricane Florence. Matthew came two years before that.
Never did it get this slow. Not at the Kelly store.
“If I gotta go to a major store I try to go like once maybe every week, or once every week and a half,” Agrella says.
She has to feed her family, and as a mom of three, she’s finding it harder to keep them entertained, as well as harder to do the new version of internet schooling. Cooper closed the state’s public schools March 16.
“I don’t have internet at home,” she said. “I mean, I have my phone, but I’m not paying hundreds of dollars to set up internet.”
She said the kids borrow her phone to look something up, but that’s about it. Agrella is among those who requested schoolwork be sent in a paper packet, a needed option the district understands and fulfills.
“They have a hot spot at the church,” she says of the Centerville Church across the highway, “but who’s going to sit out there to do two or three hours of homework?”
Internet is available if you pull up, but there’s not a lot of choice of where to do the work, other than sitting in a running car. Plus, she’s not taking her kids in the stores, either, and they are all there together.
“I don’t take them with me many places,” she said. “They usually just stay home and we have a giant yard and animals. That’s where we hang out.”
The group that usually hangs out at the store is elsewhere. This virus is deadly, having killed more than 100 in the state. Bladen County has been fortunate, logging just one case thus far.
The people in Kelly aren’t looking to become a statistic.
The governor’s order dictates no dining in. Russ obliges, and the store remains open for groceries, gas and food. Log trucks roll in occasionally, mostly in the morning and later in the day, he says. Food orders are to go, many on call-ins.
“Right now I don’t have plexiglass, I have a shower curtain,” he said. “At first people thought it was a joke, but people take it serious now.
“Where we would have a lot for breakfast and dinner, they are now getting it and going.”
Russ said he isn’t even going to shop like he usually does. The trips to places like Sam’s Club aren’t as necessary. He has had a hard time finding vendors since he just has the one store and not a chain.
“I’m just trying to keep my distance,” said Bobby Hines, who was working around the corner on a house flooded by Florence. “I see a lot of masks being worn. But me and my family, we have been blessed, and we haven’t had any problems, thank God, so far.”
Charles Russ stay hard at work cleaning off gas pumps and wiping down inside the store.