Hydro Ottawa CEO Bryce Conrad sent the following letter to City Council the evening of April 6:
Dear Mayor Sutcliffe and Council,
Re: Significant Progress Made in Customer Restorations
At this morning’s news conference, we reported that we had 65,000 customers still without power across
the city. Our crews, contractors and on-call specialists worked tirelessly today to restore power to more
than 40,000 of those customers. Approximately 150 field crews were actively engaged in the restoration
efforts overnight and throughout the day. More crews will be arriving tomorrow (April 7) to help fully restore power
to the residents and businesses of Ottawa.
Tonight, our crews will continue to work through the night and into the long weekend until all customers
have been fully restored. Barring any further weather issues, including potential wind gusts forecasted for
Friday, we expect that power will be restored to all customers by end of day, Saturday, April 8.
Please note, this situation remains dynamic and fluid. While the outage map is constantly updated, the
estimated times for restoration have proven to be a challenge. In a number of cases today, as restoration
work was completed and power was restored, the circuit failed again, resulting in additional efforts on the
part of the crews and missed timelines. Given the damage to the tree canopy and the impact on our
infrastructure, this is not an unusual circumstance.
As of 9:30 p.m. approximately 22,000 customers remain without power across the city of Ottawa. We are
taking a multi-phased restoration approach with three main waves of effort, as described below.
We are currently finishing the first wave of restoration efforts, with our focus on restoring power to the
majority of customers by midnight tonight in the largest clusters, located in the following communities:
● Casselman
● Beaconhill
● Beaconwood
● Central Beaconwood
● Findlay Creek
● The Glebe
● Blossom Park
● South Gloucester/Mitch Owens/Edwards
● Carlingwood/Mckellar Park, Woodroffe Lincoln Heights
● Parkwood Hills/Fisher Heights
● Braemar Park/Bel Air Heights
● Kanata Lakes/Katimavik/Hazeldean/Richmond/Munster-Ashton
● Rideau Glen/Pineglen
● Bells Corners East
The second wave of restoration happens on Friday where we will focus on any remaining customers within
the above communities that may still be without power, and then once secure, moving on to smaller
outages. The objective of the second wave of restoration is to restore power to any and all outages in
excess of 10 customers by 11pm on Friday.
Third wave restoration efforts on Saturday will focus on any residual outage clean-up, and transition to
individual homes and businesses, including those with damage to their personal electrical equipment
which may require Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) permitting and additional work. In some cases, the
storm may have caused damage to the homeowner’s own electrical equipment, such as the meter mast
and wires connecting directly to the house. If this is the case, the homeowner may need to make repairs
(with a qualified electrical contractor) to their equipment before Hydro Ottawa is able to reconnect power.
In some cases, temporary repairs may be allowed to enable immediate power.
We ask that you continue to encourage residents to visit our Storm Centre page and outage map, which
has the most current and up-to-date information available.
We understand how frustrating these prolonged outages can be for our customers and our community,
especially as we head into a long weekend. Once again, we thank you for your ongoing support and
understanding.
Sincerely,
Bryce Conrad
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hydro Ottawa
