Yes Virginia, there is a Halloween

Jada and Kira at the Durnakowski's

Okay fine, half the town is without power because so many lines came down in the storm and yes, some of them could be live and yeah, the roads and sidewalks still resemble a maze made from twisted tree debris...but don't tell me--more importantly my children--that Halloween is cancelled.

The town of Amherst can control roads, schools and liquor licenses, but not a major holiday. Halloween is bigger than that. It's a happy, sugar induced state of mind; and right about now folks could use a little distraction, even if it means dressing up to visit only one or two revered neighbors escorted by a vigilant parent.

And so we did.

Fireground Mt Pollux Amherst

Engine-2, a pumper with a light duty, 75' aerial device

AFD Chief Nelson on the scene

Amherst Firefighters responded to a Halloween night structure fire, probably chimney related, on Mt Pollux Drive around 10:00 PM and had it quickly under control. The house is located at the top of a short very steep incline, but enough hardware managed to make the ascent and no one was injured.

The Day After

Amherst Town Center, Amity Street, Sunday morning

This storm will go down in history for wreaking havoc of an economic and social kind, but amazingly it was not the serial killer it could have been. The town's Wi-Fi is now back up, having been down since late Saturday night.

I hope somebody considers a capital item to purchase a generator for Town Hall to keep it up during a power failure as these days so very many people have mobile devices that could have tapped into the web to communicate with loved ones, or just get an update on the storm and its aftermath.

College Street early Sunday morning

Amherst College lost mostly large branches

Gas Station on College Street

Street light beheaded in Town Center (12 hours later became hazard with power return)

Grove of birch trees bow down to the weight of the storm

New fence around Emily Dickinson Homestead took a few hits

Dickinson Street

Cumberland Farms on College Street: about the only store open with power and mobbed, running out of gas around 3:00 PM

Battle stations

9:00 PM

While Amherst public safety personnel were on high alert this Halloween weekend for the plethora of loud drunken parties expected, the situation changed dramatically this afternoon as a winter storm rolled in, felling trees and limbs--many of them also taking down power and phone lines resulting in electrical outages, transformer fires, and impassable roads.

DPW road crews--especially the tree division--and crews from WMECO have joined the battle. It's going to be a very l-o-n-g night.

Slip sliding away

Professor Hyunsuk Lee (yellow) and her merry band of Korean students

And they're off

About 100 runners braved the cold weather and mud this morning to participate in the 7th Annual Larch Hill English Style Cross Country Classic held at the sprawling Bramble Hill Farm about a mile south of Amherst town center.

Little kids kicked off the event with a 100 yard dash, medium kids did a mile, while the hardy adults negotiated three miles. All proceeds benefit the educational collaborative between Bramble Hill Farm, and their immediate neighbors, Common School and Hitchcock Center.Ten South Korean college students on a whirlwind tour of Massachusetts also participated in the race. I would love to have dragged a few of my "Party House of the Weekend" winners out of bed early this morning for a UMass team to compete against our Asian visitors.

Why the Koreans would win

It's begining to look a lot like

The Barn

Who needs a barometer; I have my neighbor, the DPW. Today they broke out the free sand pile, telling me winter is coming (or maybe it was the snow squall last night.)

Weekend throw down

Yeah, this is the B-I-G party weekend--probably more so than September 9, which culminated in a riot at 121 Meadow Street with rocks and bottles launched at public safety personnel. But maybe the colder, wetter weather will act as a deterrent...maybe.

Either way it's still "all-hands-on-deck" mode for UMass and Amherst police and the Amherst Fire Department. For AFD it's a dual threat, as dumpster fires seem to spontaneously occur late at night like fireworks on the 4th of July, and ETOH (alcohol overdose) students, one or two drinks away from death, litter the landscape.

The AP reported--and our local papers dutifully picked up--the sorry saga of students arrested by the busload at Gillette Stadium while attending the UMass/UNH football game last Saturday, which attracted far fewer fans than the previous New England Patriots game but had far more arrests for alcohol related matters.

Yeah, that's the kind of press UMass needs as they make the big expensive jump to Mid-American Conference next year.

Foxborough Police Chief Edward O'Leary is concerned because UMass has five games scheduled there next year. Lucky thing he's not police chief in Amherst, dealing with this dangerous nonsense most fair weather weekends.