The recent Halloween Storm, as it is now known, took our street offline for nearly four days. Power was out, generators made a racket, and for anyone who bothered to find out, the Internet was largely inaccessible to anyone not having a cellular access point.

We've learned to take these storms in stride, this being the third such storm in as many years. It's no surprise that fallen trees were the culprit again, but it is a surprise that our utilities haven't managed to improve their processes since the long outage after the 2008 ice storm.

I'm happy to see a number of changes, however. Overall, we are better prepared for an outage. We have dry wood stacked inside (even in October) and a good supply of batteries and candles ready to use. We have gallon jugs of water kept in the basement for toilet flushing, windup and battery powered radios ready to hear the news, and a few supplies in the cabinet for whatever may happen.

Many of our neighbors bought generators after the ice storm, and used them to run furnace and boiler motors, well pumps, and a few lights. One or two let them run all night, so we got to hear their droning right through the walls and windows instead of the normally peaceful night sounds. I hope there was a good reason, some people need power for medical equipment, and it was just a few nights after all.

And like after Irene, some wonderful folks opened up the schools and other facilities to the public, so we could warm up, shower, or check our email at AB and elsewhere. I know such things were available in Boxborough, but I wasn't informed since our phone was dead.

But lets face it, folks, we were lucky. This storm didn't hit in mid-winter, with daily highs in the 20's or colder. Maybe global warming is helping a little, too. All that tree trimming in 2009 seems to have made little dent in the amount of material able to take down the power lines, but I'm happy for the trimming, and will welcome the tree-trimmers again next spring should they come to clean up again. Three weeks after the storm, our streets are still edged by fallen limbs. I know the DPW is busy here, just as in surrounding towns I drive through daily. It's an impressive amount of damage. We cheered when the yellow trucks came down our street.

So what are my hopes for next time? I'll get to that, but what are yours? Please, join me in the discussion. I'll add more later.