First the derecho, now the ice storm: These Nepean residents want power outage answers

"Power just came back on!" came the late Saturday afternoon text from Sue Lott. "Hallelujah!"

A longtime resident of Nepean's Sunnycrest Drive, Lott went without power for nearly three full days after last Wednesday's ice storm.

Lott acknowledges she's not as vulnerable as, say, people who can't use their elevators during a blackout. But her post-storm experience — coming less than a year after the 2022 derecho knocked out power in her neighbourhood for even longer — has her dreading a "new normal."

• City of Ottawa draws on lessons learned during derecho to prep for next emergency

"Having been through this nine days within the last year, there's a lot of sense of uncertainty and fear," she said. 

Tens of thousands of people were still without power late Saturday across eastern Ontario and western Quebec, although Hydro Ottawa had restored power to most people in the nation's capital.

Lott found crafty ways to get through the most recent outage. She used what little snow was left in her backyard to keep her refrigerator items cool. 

A friend also brought over a camp stove they put to use on her back porch. 

"I had made a giant pot of chili, which I was scared was going to go bad. But we actually ate that over a couple days using the camp stove," she said.

"Without that, I would have been having to, you know, eat crackers and molding cheese."

Front window smashed by tree branch

Across the street from Lott late Saturday morning, Joe Liu's daughter played the board game Civilization in the family living room. 

Part of the front window was covered up with a plastic sheet. 

A downed tree branch had smashed the window on Wednesday, Liu explained, as his generator — purchased after the derecho — roared behind him on the driveway. 

"The tree department is finally coming today, which is already Saturday, right? This happened on Wednesday," said Liu, who's lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years.  

Alain Gonthier, the general manager of the City of Ottawa's public works department, said in a Saturday email update the city's forestry team had responded to half of the more than 2,250 calls for service that had come in since Wednesday.

Gonthier cautioned patience for those still waiting. 

"I cannot emphasize enough: Collecting and/or chipping all this debris will be a multi-week effort," his statement read.

Both Liu and Lott said communication from Hydro Ottawa left a lot to be desired.

For example, Lott said, just before her power was restored, the utility's outage map changed from stating the power would be restored at around 4 p.m. to saying restoration was delayed.

"Bizarre," she said. 

Liu and Lott also want to know why their neighbourhood is so susceptible to outages.

"Usually [the power] would be back in the same day," he said.

A Hydro Ottawa spokesperson said via email the company is committed to finding cost-effective solutions to build and maintain system resilience.

"Be reassured that the concerns from the residents of Sunnycrest Drive will be presented during our upcoming post-event debrief," they added.