the title says it all, is there a way to make a sandstorm in vx?

I'm pretty sure there is. Let me check and get back to you. ^.^

By using a picture (forget what they are called.) I don't think you can make sand whip about though....

I use Wortana's Multiple Fogs. I have a sandstorm going in my current project (it's not in the demo, though. Except at the very end, I guess.) To make it seem like a storm I randomly change the speed of the fog image between very slow and very fast. You should be able to find that script in the scripts section here...