Black Hat Chefs Raleigh NCWest Virginia Flood 2. Rainelle West Virginia, social media and an old friend. How those things will permanently affect 4 chefs from North Carolina Last weekend while watching TV, I saw a news clip on the massive flooding that was occurring in West Virginia. Discover the latest fashion and trends in menswear and womenswear at ASOS. Shop this seasons collection of clothes, accessories, beauty and more. Find the latest womens fashion and new season trends at TALLY WEiJL. Shop musthave jeans, dresses, jumpers and more. DolceGabbana presents The Fall Winter 201718 Collections. Discover online Menswear, Womenswear, Childrenswear, Eyewear, Accessories, Makeup and more. As I watched I thought to myself, I know people in West Virginia, and I hoped that they were OK. And like possibly many Americans that was all the thought I really gave it. I hoped that they would be safe but even though it is a state close to NC, it seemed a world away. That all changed when my old friend and classmate from the Culinary Institute of America Sue Bastian and her husband Paul Brian Ciciora started sending out pictures of the massive destruction on Facebook. We had been friends on Facebook for years and followed each other lives through social media. E Online Your source for entertainment news, celebrities, celeb news, and celebrity gossip. Check out the hottest fashion, photos, movies and TV showsLooking at these pictures on Facebook showed me how they were smack in the middle of a major disaster. I was glued to what was going on there. AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Terms of Use Preferences Contact Us. Watch South Park online with full episodes and in English for free. Watch Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn episodes online free. Stream full Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn episodes and movies with english subs. Sue was a great friend of mine while we were students at the CIA some 2. I was worried and started thinking about how I could help. I reached out to her husband Paul who was on site working at a mobile kitchen in White Sulphur Springs WV. I asked him how I could help and he told me to check out the nonprofit group he was volunteering at. Paul is a full time chef at the Greenbrier resort. The resort was closed due to the flooding, so many of the chefs that worked there were volunteering to help feed hundreds of people with absolutely no way to cook food for themselves. It was a community in absolute distress. The nonprofit he directed me to was Mercy Chefs mercychefs. HTB1RfjPPVXXXXXraXXXq6xXFXXXD/Wholesale-10pcs-Baseball-Cap-watch-font-b-dogs-b-font-2-man-and-woman-font-b.jpg' alt='Watch Black Hat Online' title='Watch Black Hat Online' />This group is out of Virginia but was born out of the need of Hurricane Katrina. They travel the country going from disaster to disaster helping people not only through nourishment but through spiritual healing as well. I checked them out and knew I had to be part of this. I reached back out to Paul and said that I wanted to help. For mens fashion check out the latest ranges at Topman online and buy today. Topman The only destination for the best in mens fashion. Directed by Rusty Cundieff. With Larry B. Scott, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Rusty Cundieff, Kasi Lemmons. A mockumentary chronicling the rise and fall of NWH, a not. E Entertainment Television, LLC. A Division of NBCUniversal with news, shows, photos, and videos. He gave me the number to the chef in charge Fred Tiess. After a few emails to Mercy Chefs and to Fred, I saw they desperately needed help. They pride themselves on professionally prepared meals served to people in need. Free Downloads War Of The Worlds: Goliath. I wanted on this train and said I want to volunteer. I was going to drive to West Virginia some 4. I quickly thought of my chefs and said, we could use them too. I texted Ryan Conklin, Paul Berens, and Steve Pexton late Sunday night June 2. I told them about my friend, and how I connected on Facebook and how the town they lived in was devastated. I told them about Mercy Chefs and how they needed help and would they want to come with me. In very short order I got return texts count me in, when do we go and hell yeah. I was so proud of them, they just wanted to help yet given only basic information they jumped right on this. So there we were the next day with blessings from UNC REX Healthcare leadership who rock by the way. Raleigh. Our truck was loaded down with suitcases, knife kits, chef coats, aprons and side towels. We arrived in White Sulphur Springs about 1 pm the that day. As we rolled down the highway, everything looked normal. Every once in a while, we would see some damage to trees and dirt and debris on the road but nothing serious that would make us believe a disaster had occurred. We then got off the exit to White Sulphur Springs that all changed. Our first image was massive destruction of the creek beds, cars upside down, sheds, garages and debris all over the place. We saw a lumber yard that looked like it had been blown up. Construction crews were hard at work everywhere. Front end loaders, bobcats, dump trucks all over the place. People were swarming trying to clean up this major devastation. We saw tractor trailers literally ripped apart and left in a pile of shredded metal. It was humbling to see such damage. We didnt really know where to go so we pulled into a grocery store parking lot. When we did we saw Army medevac helicopters, coming and going. There were Army medics and civilians giving out Tetanus shots, cleaning supplies and bottled water. We had never seen anything like this. We got to the Mercy Chefs site and were immediately impressed. We met the key players and told them to put us to work. Lunch had already been served so we started to work on dinner. We diced onions, roasted pork loins, cut cabbage and made desserts. We made side salads and generally did whatever they asked of us. This was not our gig, we were volunteers and wanted to help in anyway, so if that meant wash dishes or take trash to the dumpster that is what we did. It was very satisfying to be there. What we saw was an organization that was deeply committed to helping people. The permanent staff of Mercy Chefs was amazing. Their head chef Walter was a former US Marine Corps cook that had an amazing culinary skill set. He was totally devoted to his mission, in fact, he told me it was his calling and oh by the way it was definitely his kitchen in a very good way. He was grateful that we had come all the way from North Carolina. After that meal, we went back to our hotel 3. There was no water or electricity in the town we were serving. We all said we felt guilty in some way as we had the ability to shower and be in air conditioning. This was something that many in White Sulphur Springs were weeks and possibly months away from having. The next day we went back to White Sulphur Springs to prep and cook for lunch, which we did, but our new mission would be Rainelle West Virginia. This town will forever have an effect on all of us. It certainly has changed me. This small community of Rainelle was about a 4. We were told that if you think White Sulphur as the locals call it is bad, wait to you get to Rainelle. Rainelle is worse off, and when we got there we saw that indeed it was much worse. White Sulphur had teams of construction crews, grocery stores, food trucks and BBQ tents. Rainelle had none of those things. What we saw was an active military operation. The WV Army National Guard was in charge here. They were everywhere, Humvees, military police, state police and Guardsmen everywhere. They had heavy equipment moving material that was placed in front of homes and businesses. It was bedlam. The stench was at times overbearing. It was a totally different feel than White Sulphur, it was far worse off and it was 6 days since the flood had occurred. The people were visibly torn apart emotionally. They had all lost everything they had ever owned. What we did not see was adequate port a potties, hot food and disinfectants. We had people ask us if we had bleach and another ask us if we had hand sanitizer. It was sad to see all of this unfold in front of us. We went for a short walk to survey the area when we first got there. We saw cars that were completely covered in mud inside and out. All of these cars were totally destroyed. Houses with water marks 5 6 feet up the side was commonplace. People were scraping mud out of their houses and pulling out sheet rock. There were piles of garbage everywhere we looked. We knew we needed to get to work. So we set up operations on a corner lot that used to be a car dealer, right next to a trailer dealer. The trailers in that lot were completely destroyed. They looked like a can opener had ripped open the metal. Everything around us was destroyed. People were cleaning out their business all along Main St. The Army was just down the road using front end loaders to clear debris, which was everywhere. All the homes in the downtown area and I mean all of them were destroyed. The thing that I remember most was an immense sense of community. You could tell that before the flood, this was a close knit town. It was even closer in the face of this disaster. Everyone was so nice and thankful that we were there. They were amazed that we had come from another state and were willing to help. We were like are you kidding me, this is an honor to be able to help out.