May 21 storm: Hydro Ottawa will review its handling of the situation

Hydro Ottawa’s President and CEO, Bryce Conrad, and the Chairman of the Board of Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc., Jim Durrell, brought up the subject at the very end of their presentation.

This storm was unprecedented in Hydro Ottawa’s history, reiterated Jim Durrell before the city council. He said that Hydro Ottawa usually changes 400 hydro poles in a year, but after the storm, it was 400 and more in the space of 24 hours.

In response to the May 21 derecho, teams from other electric companies and other provinces came to lend a hand to Hydro Ottawa. Bryce Conrad maintains that the repairs were carried out at the maximum of their capacities, that is to say with the number of people necessary and as fast as it could go.

Hydro Ottawa’s handling of the storm will be subject to review, said MM. Conrad and Durrell. Nothing will be swept under the rug assures the chairman of the board of directors.

Officials say the storm will have cost Hydro Ottawa approximately $30 million.

Sustainability, communications, acknowledgments and reviews

The power grid’s resilience to climate change was a focus of questions from some city councillors, including Rawlson King of Rideau Rockcliffe Ward.

Mr. King hopes that Hydro Ottawa will take steps so that its system can better cope with climate change that will bring more severe weather to the region. To this, the president of Hydro Ottawa said, among other things, that the company has invested more and more effort in this direction since the tornado of 2018.

Bryce Conrad believes that, the average Ottawa resident is not prepared for a protracted emergency… I would say most of them are not ready for 72 hours.

” I was shocked, gobsmacked, whatever word you wanted to use, that you could have a residence of 300 to 400 people without backup power. I find that shocking, almost criminal. »

Several councilors took advantage of this meeting to send flowers to the leaders of Hydro Ottawa for the work done by their teams after the storm. Others, like Laura Dudas and Riley Brockington, took advantage of this moment to set the record straight.

Innes Ward Councilor Laura Dudas said she offered her fellow citizens limited information about outages in her ward. However, she is of the opinion that it should not be the responsibility of councilors or municipal resources to communicate information on this subject. to your users.

For his part, the councilor for the Rivière district, Riley Brockington, echoed the remarks made by his colleague Laura Dudas, that the councilors were the ones who went into the field to inform the citizens, whereas he himself had no of electricity.

In addition, Riley Brockington criticized Hydro Ottawa’s lack of proactivity in communicating with the public. According to him, these problems dated back even before the storm of May 21.

Hydro Ottawa President and CEO Bryce Conrad and the company’s Chairman of the Board, Jim Durrell, discussed the possibility of working in partnership with radio stations to keep the public informed of developments during power outages.

What is your plan to let customers know what they can expect in the future? asked Laura Dudas. We will find ways to communicate with our customers and communicate the results of the storm management study to them, Bryce Conrad said, raising the possibility of doing so through community associations or town hall meetings.

Three motions adopted to be better prepared

Three motions related to the storm were passed by city council on Wednesday.

One requires in particular that the City more specifically directs community resources where they are most needed (donations to the Ottawa Food Bank, water distribution, neighborhood visits, etc.)that it develop a process in this regard, and that the lessons learned from the derecho be incorporated into the City’s training on emergency preparedness.

With the second motion adopted, the City undertakes to request the preparation of a report that covers on the rules governing the requirement for multi-unit buildings with elevators and gas stations to install a generator and see to its proper operation, and examines the regulatory changes required to make their use more uniform and widespread.

The third request to the mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, requests in writing the general manager of Hydro Ottawa to inform City Council and the residents of Ottawa of its action plan to better communicate with the population in the event of a crisis, modernize its network and thus better estimate when power will be restored, and improve logistics in the event of bad weather and unforeseen events.

City Council is unsure when the results of Hydro Ottawa’s storm management study will be available. However, members say they would like to have them in about two or three months.

With information from Rebecca Kwan