Hydro Ottawa warns more multi-day outages possible due to severe weather

Hydro Ottawa is warning customers that more multi-day outages are possible as the capital experiences more intense weather events.

Hydro Ottawa President and CEO Bryce Conrad says the derecho storm that hit the capital in May 2022 caused $25 million of damage to infrastructure. The funds have not been recouped by the provincial level of government.

• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App
• Sign up now for our nightly CTV News Ottawa newsletter

Conrad told council Wednesday that the city must have "upset a weather god," given the amount of severe weather in the past few years.

"The derecho, depending on where you are in the city, lasted anywhere from seven to 12 days, the worst was, I believe. So that is people without power for 12 days," he says.

"Fast forward to right before Christmas and we get hit with a snow bomb, heavy, heavy snow. We had a two- to three-day outage there … fast forward to (spring) of this year and we had an ice, snow, and wind storm and that was a three-day outage in some places."

He then warns that this could be a daunting prediction.

"I am not a forecaster, but I am looking and saying if that was the past, we should prepare for that in the future."

Conrad says Hydro Ottawa will do what it can to best protect the infrastructure, but residents need to be prepared for emergencies that last up to 72 hours.

"I will do what I can to harden the infrastructure, tree trimming, accelerate our vegetation management … we will bury lines where we can, we will protect the lines, but at the end of the day, the homeowner has to be prepared to go two to three days without power," he says.

Hydro Ottawa is spending $245 million to upgrade its Merivale Transmission Station, one of two critical sites that help supply 60 per cent of Ottawa's total power supply.

Conrad says they have targeted about $500 million in work to bury some key infrastructure over the next seven to 10 years.

Despite the recent outages, Conrad insist the system is strong. "It is not fragile at all," he says. "The derecho is 190 kilometre an hour wind, there is nothing that withstands that. That is not fragility that is just God kicking our ass."