Owner Bill Kent walks CSD through the harrowing event that destroyed a Kent Kwik store.
The Kent Cos. is planning to rebuild its Midland County Kent Kwik Store after an accident on the morning of July 5 that destroyed the store.
“An 18 wheeler hauling pipe was driving south on Hiway 158 when a pick up apparently pulled out in front of the 18 wheeler from a side road. The 18 wheeler swerved but clipped the pickup resulting in damage to the 18 wheeler’s steering. The driver had no control and plowed over two large pine trees at the front of our property, barreled across our property barely missing our fuel island, but hitting a car at the fuel island, then blasted into another car parked in front of the store,” Bill Kent, owner of Kent Cos. told CSD. “The 18 wheeler took both cars into the store and it went out the back of the store.”
Three Kent Kwik team members were working that morning and about four guests were inside the convenience store at the time of the collision, but luckily there were no serious injures to either driver or anyone inside the store. The store, however, was another story.
“It destroyed the building,” Kent said. “We were very fortunate as this could have been a disaster with serious injuries or even loss of life. We’ve very thankful and blessed. The store is a loss.”
Rebuild Plans
In light of the damage, the company plans to rebuild the Kent Kwik store to be bigger and better than before. “This was an older store we acquired, so our new design will be included and, of course, it will be a much larger store. This store had a proprietary food/deli operation inside and it will continue to have that and that will probably be expanded. We don’t yet know when we can start on tearing down the facility as we have several insurance companies involved in this,” Kent told CSD.
“I’m just thankful we have no serious injuries, as the facility and everything else can be replaced,” Kent said. “We’re blessed and relieved. We had this store on our list to be rebuilt at some point, this just moved it up the schedule.”