MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Before Henry Craig was a chairman for the Baldwin County Board of Commissioners, he served 20 years in the military and was a regular volunteer at the Georgia War Veterans Home.
"I was at junior college at Georgia Military College and every night, I was a Ward A attendant in the cabiness building in the Georgia Wars Veterans Home," he recalls.
He says since then, he still goes back when he can, both to be among his fellow veterans, and to volunteer.
"This home is important to all veterans, this home is important to Georgia," he said.
On January 17, Craig says he got a call that a supply storage warehouse was on fire.
Executive director Dennis Mize was also one of the first to get there that night.
"We started that evening looking at what supplies were in the warehouse and our property supply officer came in and started an inventory at that time of what we had on the shelves and what was damaged," he said.
Mize says everything from blood pressure machines to paper goods were in there. They lost a lot of it in the fire.
"It was about $150,000 worth of supplies in the warehouse that were damaged," said Mize.
Mize says they normally get shipments of supplies three times a week, but following the fire, they were able to restock almost immediately.
"We did an emergency order through Pruitt Health and they shipped additional supplies in Monday morning and another shipment in on Tuesday for paper goods and then on Wednesday, we got a third shipment in so it had no impact on patient care," he said.
He says although nothing left in the warehouse can still be used, they're almost back where they need to be.
Mize says they were given clearance to keep the warehouse intact.
Baldwin County fire chief Victor Young says they determined the cause of the fire was a shortage in a light in the ceiling.
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