Why do cars keep crashing into KC-area veterans hall? Officials search for fix

Most people consider a car crashing through the roof of a building to be a rare occurrence.

So two such crashes into the same roof in just 3 months is raising alarm bells in Excelsior Springs, particularly to representatives of the Clay-Ray Veterans Association, who had to close their building after the first crash in February.

On Feb. 15, an alleged Olathe sex offender led police on an early morning high-speed chase in Excelsior Springs that ended with the vehicle putting a hole in the roof of the veterans building.

Then, on May 29, another vehicle drove off the road and crashed into the roof, with the driver walking to the ambulance under his power, according to Excelsior Springs police spokesperson Lt. Ryan Dowdy . According to the Excelsior Citizen, the driver suffered a medical episode that caused the wreck.

Chris Stull, president of the Clay-Ray Veterans Association, said the building was just a few weeks from reopening after the first crash. So far, insurance has covered all damages, which tallied about $350K from the first wreck alone, Stull said.

The cost to fix damages from the most recent crash, which was captured on surveillance video, isn’t known yet, pending an estimate from insurance and contractors.

The construction has prevented the hall that houses several veteran groups from generating income from its bar and Friday night bingo hosted by the American Legion. Bingo can’t be held anywhere else because of its license with the Missouri Gaming Commission, which requires it to be inside that building.

“It sucks,” Stull told The Star about the frustrating turn of events. The association held a Memorial Day service earlier in the week that was “not nearly as big as what we usually do,” Stull said.

Stull and other representatives of the hall met with city officials multiple times throughout the week.

Stull proposed a concrete barricade in front of the building on the road to stop any vehicle. City officials did not agree, citing that the drivers of the incidents survived and that a barricade could have killed them.

Stull had left the building almost three hours before the first crash. With contractors still working on the building, Stull said they could have been inside when the second crash occurred. Luckily, no one was inside when either of the crashes happened.

But Stull worries that luck could run out.

If another crash occurred, he pointed out people could be inside and get hurt. He quoted Star Trek when discussing possible solutions to this issue with officials.

“The need of the many outweigh the need of the few or the one,” Stull said.

Barricade solutions

Officials cite the unique nature of the roads in that area and the speed of the vehicles traveling those roads as the reasons for the wrecks.

Missouri Highway 10 runs through the city of Excelsior Springs. As vehicles approach the S-curve at the intersection of Old Orchard Street and Kearney Road, which is still part of the state highway but is renamed for address purposes, they can continue eastbound onto Linwood Avenue, which is no longer part of the state highway.

From Linwood Avenue, vehicles which lose control can drive off-road through a grass patch, drive onto Wildwood Street, and through a line of shrubbery that sits at a higher elevation before it drops to St. Louis Avenue, another city road that’s a part of Highway 10.

The veterans hall’s roof is parallel to St. Louis Avenue, with just a decorative black fence separating the top of the building from traffic.

“Once [a vehicle] leaves that as it basically launches off of the roadway that it left, eventually where it ends is gonna be lower, and it just turns out that there’s a building there,” Excelsior Springs police spokesperson Lt. Ryan Dowdy said.

Dowdy said crashes have occurred in the same area before, but the speed of the vehicles is what put these two vehicles through the roof.

“These guys are just at extremely high rates of speed,” he said. “It’s the speed that is what’s causing this kind of a crash.”

Public works director Chad Birdsong said the vehicles took similar paths in both incidents. Birdsong and city manager Molly McGovern were amused at the circumstances, laughing about such similar incidents occurring within three months since it didn’t happen in the years prior.

But both agreed that city leadership is concerned, as they search for a way to prevent another wreck into the building.

“It’s really not a question of, should something be done? It’s kind of like, what is the solution?” McGovern said. “Because you’re designing for unknown circumstances, and trying to determine what can be the best solution, and you don’t want to injure anyone else with the solution. So it’s just going to take a little bit of discussion to come up with a solution, because it’s just a little crazy.”

Both agreed that a barrier is part of the solution, but the rest of the specifics are yet to be decided. In a city council meeting Friday, McGovern told veterans representatives that city would evaluate its options and come back to them with a solution soon.

“You don’t want the solution to kill somebody. But yet, it’s not fair for someone that’s uninvolved to be injured or killed,” McGovern said.

Restarting repairs

As the city weighs its options, the veterans hall remains inoperable.

The first crash damaged water pipes, flooding the building’s bingo hall, Stull said. The building also needs a brand new floor and new kitchen equipment in addition to repairing roof and ceiling damage.

In the second crash, the vehicle flipped over the black fence outside of the building into the roof. The vehicle’s engine toppled over the roof and into the flag pole, damaging the base and cracking its foundation.

The flag pole and the headstone of Frankie Lee Dravenstott must also be replaced. Dravenstott was a U.S. Navy veteran who was on the board of directors, head of flag detail, and a member of the Honor Guard for the Clay-Ray Veterans Association, according to his obituary.

Insurance is handling all of the damages, but the hall is receiving donations through GoFundMe to pay the remaining bills. They have only gained nearly $400 of their $25K goal. The hall is also having some fun with the incidents, selling T-shirts with a drawing of a car in a roof above the statement: “Land here for a cold beer”.

Stull hopes to have the building up and running again by the end of the summer. While he continues overseeing the building process, he plans to fight for barriers to prevent this kind of incident from happening again, when there could possibly be people inside.

“I can have 100 people sitting here playing bingo and around the bar. If that thing saves 100 people over that one, I’m happy,” Stull said he told to city officials. “I don’t know if they like that too much.”

This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 3:28 PM.