Hours before deadly Family Dollar collapse, KC neighbors warned of danger
At 11:15 a.m. Saturday, one day before the Family Dollar store in Kansas City collapsed, killing one man and sending a woman to the hospital in critical condition, concerned neighbor Noah Banks, 61, snapped a photo of the building.
On the photo, she used red highlight to circle the buckling, but still standing, entrance to the store and sent a warning message to her friends.
“I’ve been watching this for quite awhile now,” Banks texted. “The next time you go to family dollar please be careful.”
Hours later, her next text to neighbor Cheryl Carson, 68, took on greater urgency. “Be careful the next time you go to family dollar; it’s falling,” she wrote.
Carson, indeed, was so worried about the building that at 10 a.m. Sunday morning, just hours before the front descended in a torrent of bricks, Carson entered the store at 3726 Broadway Blvd.
“I started praying before I even went in there,” Carson said. “When I went in there, I talked to the lady at the counter. . .And I said, ‘Aren’t you guys scared about what’s getting ready to happen?’ I said, ‘This building looks like it’s getting ready to fall down.’ She said, ‘I know, you’re not the only one who has said something about that.’”
“I said, ‘It looks like it’s going to fall any minute.’”
Carson said that the worker told her that because of air conditioning and other maintenance issues, store management had decided “to wait and see what’s going to happen.”
“I said, ‘What do you mean, wait and see what’s going to happen!?’ I said, ‘Anybody could get hurt or even killed due to this structure. Like it’s already falling.’”
Family Dollar collapse
On Sunday afternoon, at approximately 2:45 p.m., it did fall, killing Larry Banks — no relation to Noah Banks — who lived nearby, and sending a woman to the hospital.
On Monday, Noah Banks sat on the brick porch of her apartment building across the street and cried in both anger and frustration.
“I want that lady and that man to have justice for what happened to them both,” Banks said. “For the last two days, before it happened — I am a follower of Christ Jesus — and I heard the Holy Spirit tell me to warn as many people as possible.”
She scrolled through her phone to show the the photo and texts.
“Several of my neighbors, over there, myself, we ‘ve been watching that building for a good 30 days. And I know, I know, it’s not just myself. I know others have been telling them for a while. . . .Miss Cheryl went over there. She said she warned them. The workers told her the managment knew about it and they said they will see what happens.
“My heart’s really heavy.”
She said she had been in the store on Saturday. It’s one she often frequented. Even going inside made her nervous.
“I prayed so hard, ‘Lord please protect me,’” she said, and even ducked her head for protection as she left. “I knew it was going to happen. I knew it. I knew it. The Holy Spirit of God never lies. When He instructed me to warn as many people as possible, that’s what I did. . . .
“Those people, that man, didn’t have to lose his life. That lady, whatever medical situation she is in, it did not have to happen.”
Store damaged by car
Carson said she also knew that building was faulty. She’s lived across Broadway since 2012.
She recalled how, years ago, a car crashed into the front of the store, destroying a supportive pillar that was never replaced.
The event occurred on Oct. 10, 2016.
Carson said that on Sunday, when she was in the store, she told the counter worker of its history. The damage was visible even inside.
“It was like you could see it was coming, the tiles or whatever was in a V-shape, coming down,” Carson said. “She looked at that and I said, ‘Oh my god, did you know that there used to a pole that stood on that little corner that supported that corner of that building?’ She said, ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ I said, ‘Well, come here. I’ll show you.’ And i showed her where the pole used to be. Because years ago, a car or something ran into it, knocked it off. And they never replaced it.
“And so I just told her, ‘Just be careful.’ . . .I said, ‘I’m going to say a prayer before I leave out of here so it won’t fall on me, or whatever.’ So then I just left.”
A few hours later, Carson was on nearby Linwood Avenue returning from church services. She heard and saw police cars. Though she was deeply saddened, it did not surprise her.
“No, not really,” Carson said. “Because like she said, it was going to fall down. We could look at it and tell you it was going to fall down any minute. Just like I told the girl in the store, when I was talking, I said, ‘You know, it don’t take nothing but another hard rain or a truck, you know that vibrates. It looks like it’s going to fall down any minute.
“She said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m aware of that.’ And it’s senseless. Nobody should have lost their life behind that. Period.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 3:50 PM.
