SULLIVAN COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — In March of 2023, a tornado completely destroyed the Veterans of Foreign Wars building in Sullivan County.
Now, members of the organization have picked up the pieces.
As of June 14th, Commander at the VFW, Andy Jones, said they are open.
“This has really, truly been a community effort to get us back open”, Jones said. “I can’t thank the community enough for everything that they’ve done.”
The VFW hasn’t been open since that Friday night in March of 2023.
“We lost everything”, Jones said. “We lost our building, we lost our helicopter, we lost our flagpole. It was a total loss.”
During that night, many residents were inside the building, but luckily no one was injured.
“I come to find out there were seven people trapped inside of our cooler, that was the only thing that was not destroyed that night”, Jones said. “We got down here and got the back door open, cleared out the debris to get the cooler open, and got everybody out. Thank god nobody was hurt.”
In July of last year, the organization began replacing the things that were lost, starting with a helicopter they were gifted.
“That was actually donated from a museum in Virginia that was closing down”, Jones said. “They knew we lost our Huey in the tornado, and they offered us this replacement, which was one of the original cobras that was flown in Vietnam.”
The new building is much bigger, allowing for more events to take place in the VFW very soon.
“The bar area is actually the same size of our old building, so we basically doubled in size”, Jones said. “We also have a bigger venue now which allows us to host more baby showers, weddings, anything.”
Jones said there are still a few things the VFW is looking to complete before they hold an opening ceremony, like a flagpole, but they are hoping to have a ribbon cutting ceremony soon.
