As those of us in the northeast face the fourth storm in less than three weeks, I am reflecting on first and second. My neighborhood lost power for a week or more. And when we got it back, the Internet remained out. A tree had come down just a mile or so from the house, blocking the main road.

My husband and I were pretty lucky. We have town water and sewer so no running around filling jugs with water. We have a gas stove so I could cook on the top burners. And we have a generator that we used to run the freezer, refrigerator and one outlet where we powered our devices.

Our power came back about two hours before the next storm hit. Although it went out again the following day, it was only out for a few hours.

On the following Saturday we drove around the area. The local Stop and Shop was the only store open in the mall and it was dim. All the freezers were covered with plastic. We were just about the only people there. The streets were empty. And no wonder: the gas stations were closed, the CVS was closed. Our gym was closed for almost 8 days. It was like walking through a zombie movie.

Now, my question is why don’t the power companies gradually bury the lines? Most of the lines around here were put up in the fifties and sixties. That is 60+ years ago. These storms happen every few years . They fix whatever broke and now that they have put bandaids on the punctured artery move on. I realize it would be too expensive to do it all at once, but why not gradually? It seems like a bad business plan to me.

I was discussing this with one of my younger colleagues. His take: That this is the fault of the baby boomer generation on down. We’ve allowed this to happen. We’ve allowed the CEOS to get huge salaries and basically ignore the infrastructure of the companies they run. I can’t say I disagree. Because I know that we will have more wild storms and everyone will lost power again.