SULLIVAN, Mo. – The Sullivan community is coming together to help a local business with cleanup after a tornado dropped down on One More Pub & Grill on Highway 185. The only thing left standing at the pub were brick walls.
“The building has been here for years. At least 40, 50, 60 years, and it has been a bar for at least 25, I think. So, patronage, a lot of people are aware of it,” Jane Epperson, One More Pub & Grill’s owner, said.
She said right after the sirens ended, a neighbor called her with news.
“Said that he had either heard it was an outbuilding or a rental house that was pretty much on 185,” Epperson said.
Right next door to the bar, Rob Bridgeman’s dog woke him up seconds before the tornado hit.
“I was trying to figure it out and then I heard the wind and the rain,” he said.
Bridgeman said that as soon as his feet hit the floor, he knew what was coming.
“My floors was shaking like it was an earthquake or something. I mean, a severe earthquake,” he said. “I thought it was going to fall into the basement.”
Bridgeman said a tornado hit his house last year. This time, the tornado hit the bar next door.
“It sounded like two trains and all of the sudden, it hit head-on. That’s what it sounded like. Then I come out on the porch and saw the dumpster floating and go flying off,” said Bridgeman.
He said everything happened so quickly he didn’t have time to get to the basement. Bridgeman said he’s thankful to be alive.
“The noise and the shaking and the rain and stuff like that. In your wildest dreams, unless you’ve been in it, you can’t imagine how bad it is,” he said.