SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va. \u2014 Aaron Maloney was fortunate on June 23, 2016. Then the owner of Maloney\u2019s Pub in Summersville, he said the massive flooding that day had less of an impact where he lived compared to other places.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never seen water like that, especially in my own yard but really anywhere at that point,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cI met my wife, and I was looking around like, \u2018Oh my god, this is bad, this isn\u2019t good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others in Nicholas County were not as fortunate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking, my gosh, if it\u2019s this bad here in downtown Summersville area, what\u2019s it like in downtown Richwood?\u201d<\/p>\n
His prediction turned out to be, unfortunately, correct.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the day went along, you start seeing pictures and videos, and you just really couldn\u2019t believe what your eyes are seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One of the first things he remembered in the aftermath was how much help came to his corner of the world. Whether from northern West Virginia or from out-of-state entirely, it felt like an army of Good Samaritans had descended on the likes of Nicholas, Fayette, Webster, Greenbrier and Clay counties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seemed like there were new people coming in from all the time to help from out of state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Maloney would run into them sometimes at the pub. Inspired by the generosity of those who had come to West Virginia to help, he wanted to do his part as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unity that was shown, people donating supplies \u2013 I\u2019ve never seen anything like that,\u201d he said. \u201cAs far as natural disasters, you see stuff on the news. You\u2019ll see hurricanes or tornadoes ravage places. But this one hit home, and it was the first time I had ever seen people come together like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes he and his crew just cooked the food \u2013 usually pork \u2013 while volunteers would take it to hard hit areas. In some cases, like a trip to Dixie Elementary School, he and his dad took food and other supplies themselves. Notably, they couldn\u2019t just take the direct trip on Route 39 in Nicholas County, because a bridge had been fully washed away before the community of Belva.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust big steel structures that were pummeled by the water,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cIt was unfathomable for a bridge like that to be washed away.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was up Gauley Mountain, through Ansted on U.S. 60 and back down the mountain to eventually land in Dixie.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of miles logged,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cI just kind of wanted to witness it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Help, he remembered, sometimes came in unusual ways. Maloney recalled an e-mail that he hadn\u2019t been expecting from a name he didn\u2019t know. It was Scott Patterson, former professional baseball player turned actor. One of the male leads on the popular show \u201cGilmore Girls\u201d had found Maloney\u2019s information and offered to bring his band to the pub for a fundraiser around a month after the events of June 23. Maloney agreed, though he missed the performance while out-of-state for a planned-in-advance family trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t appreciate it \u2013 how cool that was,\u201d Maloney said.<\/p>\n
Though much of the scar tissue of the floods is physically no longer around, Maloney said there are still some reminders \u2013 notably that Summersville Middle School students are still learning in pods rather than a school building. Like with the opening of Richwood High School last year, he\u2019s hopeful that will change soon for Summersville Middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like the bricks are in the ground,\u201d Maloney said.<\/p>\n
About a year after the floods, Maloney did see an episode of \u201cGilmore Girls\u201d that featured Patterson. That reminded him how special it all was for people from so many different walks of life to come together in support of countless flood-ravaged West Virginia communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tragedy. People will never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va. \u2014 Aaron Maloney was fortunate on June 23, 2016. Then the owner of Maloney\u2019s Pub in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-728311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}