enlarge The Associated Press

Crews hired by Public Service Company of New Hampshire clear tree limbs near power lines in Dunbarton, N.H., on Oct. 16. Last December’s ice storm left some without power for weeks.

  JAFFREY, N.H. — Sieglinde Poegel and her husband, Werner, were unable to return to their home in Jaffrey for several months after the ice storm that crippled much of the Northeast last December. A pine tree crashed into their living room during the storm.

This year, they are taking no chances. They cut down every tree on their property.

As the cold season returns to the Northeast, residents, utilities and emergency managers say they're better prepared, thanks to the lessons from that ferocious ice storm Dec. 11-12 that left hundreds of thousands without power – some for two weeks.

At Unitil, the utility most assailed for delays in restoring power, every employee now has a storm assignment. In New Hampshire, where more than half of the state's homes and businesses went dark, lawmakers passed a bill allowing utilities, which do year-round tree trimming in the heavily forested state, to cut on private property if landowners don't respond to a written notice within 45 days.

Emergency management agencies in several states have emphasized training and planning for a worst-case scenario and being more aggressive about using radio, Web sites and social media outlets such as Twitter for reports of outages and updates.

State and local governments harshly criticized the utilities for their response to the storm. The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities this week ordered New Hampshire-based Unitil, which provides electricity to four communities in that state, to hire an independent auditor to review its management system.

Some residents sued the utility for losses incurred in the storm. New Hampshire is soon releasing its own report on the utilities' performance.

Todd Black, a Unitil vice president, said the region, which includes his company, had never seen such devastation. He said Unitil has reached most of the 28 goals it outlined in a post-storm self-assessment.

Among them: planning for an impending storm with checklists three days ahead of impact; maintaining a network of extra resources including tree-trimming contractors and line repair crews; training more staff to assess and report damage; and accommodating more customer calls.

The company has a new emergency command center in Hampton that oversees three regional ones. It went through a mock drill in September.

"There are planning chiefs, operations chiefs, logistics chiefs as well as administrative and finance chiefs and, of course, communications," said Richard Francazio, Unitil's new emergency response director. "We've created a very structured and disciplined format to address any type of event."

Public Service Company of New Hampshire, the state's largest utility, wants to use more staff during large-scale outages to maintain contact with communities, spokesman Martin Murray said.