The freak tornado that tore up the small town of Monson last year came and went in minutes – but Karen King’s life has been caught up in a whirlwind ever since.
A local resident and Realtor for more than 25 years, King was at home the afternoon that the storm hit. Her residence was unaffected – but she soon found out that several nearby family members hadn’t been so lucky.
“We had about thirteen people who came over to my home with nothing but the clothes on their backs that night – we still don’t know who brought them over. You know how after 9/11 everybody had dirt all over them and they looked like zombies? That’s kind of how it was,” she recalls. “One lost their home totally, one lost part of the second floor, one had every window broken in their house.”
‘How About If You Help?’
King at first turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for help – but given the rarity of tornadoes in Massachusetts, FEMA had barely begun its assessment and didn’t have anything in the way of resources ready that afternoon.
Undaunted, King took to the phones with an ingenious plan.
“Long story short, I ended up calling a bunch of people whose homes were for sale and I convinced them to take the homes off the market, if they weren’t living in them, and rent them for a year to the tornado people.”
Over the course of the next few days, King’s persuasion helped find temporary shelter for more than 30 local families.
King says the solution was a no-brainer – a win-win for both the sellers and the tornado victims. “Homes weren’t really going too fast in Monson right after the tornado, you know? People weren’t out looking – the town was literally reduced to rubble,” she explained. “So I said, ‘now’s not really a good time to be selling, how about if you help someone?’”
Throwing herself into the relief efforts, King and her staff began distributing bottled water in the days after the storm. As she became more involved in the recovery, she founded a volunteer organization, Street Angels, which helped distribute flyers informing people about where to seek help and emergency supplies throughout the town.
One year later, the Street Angels are still going strong – though these days they’re bringing “Welcome Home” baskets to families that have recently returned to town as their homes are rehabilitated and rebuilt.
No Rest For The Weary
King said her work with the Angels helped show her a community knitting itself back together. “When we first started going out, we’d bring them water, [and] they wouldn’t even know who their neighbor was. And now we go back, with flyers or what have you, and they’ll say, ‘oh, give me a couple extras, and I’ll take them over to our neighbors,’” King said. “So we saw everyone come in and help us and we’re just overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity that has helped.”
King herself has been showered with awards and recognition. Her individual efforts and the work of the Street Angels has been recognized by FEMA, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, among others.
But King’s efforts didn’t come without a cost. In the storm’s aftermath, she reduced her real estate team to just two people, herself and a staffer – though she still managed to sell 90 homes last year. She hasn’t seen the inside of her office in 11 months, she laughs.
Instead, she seems to spend more time in her garage, which is packed to the brim with flyers, baskets and enough antibacterial soap to supply the whole town. The tornado and its aftermath still dominate King’s life – on the day she spoke with Banker & Tradesman, King was bouncing between a tornado anniversary committee meeting, an interview with the Springfield Republican on Monson’s recovery efforts, a book-signing at the town library (for the new picture book on Toto the Tornado Kitten) and finally an evening meeting of the town’s emergency response committee.
“I’m the volunteer coordinator for the town of Monson for future disasters,” King explained. But, she said, “I’m hoping there isn’t any.”
