In several Nepean neighbourhoods, the sudden silence of a power cut is often quickly replaced by the familiar hum of gas generators. For residents in areas like Manordale, McKellar Park, and Crestview, electrical outages are not rare emergencies but a recurring fact of life, prompting many to develop detailed contingency plans for multi-day blackouts.
A Community Forged by Frequent Failures
Brittany Lauzon, who lives in a century-old farmhouse in Manordale, says power cuts are so common that her neighbourhood has developed a systematic response. Outages occur frequently enough that a community-wide backup strategy is now in place. When the lights go out, her neighbour allows her to plug her refrigerator into his generator. Lauzon herself runs a smaller gas-powered unit to keep essential items, like her fish tanks, operational.
"We just have a system in our neighbourhood because we have so many outages," Lauzon explained in an interview published on December 29, 2025. "It made me realize that, yeah, we have a problem around here." Residents have even established an informal courtesy, turning generators off at night to minimize noise pollution for others.
Aging Infrastructure and Communication Gaps
The reliance on fossil-fuel backups has ironically stalled some green home upgrades. Lauzon's family would like to phase out gas systems for electric alternatives but finds it unrealistic due to the unreliable grid. They refuse to remove their gas fireplace, as it remains their primary heat source during unexpected blackouts.
Communication from the utility provider, Hydro Ottawa, is a significant point of frustration for residents. Judy Bond, another Manordale resident, notes that while she expects occasional outages in an area with aging infrastructure, information is slow to arrive. It often takes 20 to 30 minutes for the Hydro Ottawa outage map to update with an estimated restoration time or cause. This leaves residents like Bond refreshing their screens in the dark, unsure of the problem's scope or duration.
Lauzon describes a neighbourhood game of "broken telephone" that starts with every flicker, as people try to piece together information that the official channels aren't promptly providing.
A Widespread Issue Across Nepean
This challenge is not confined to Manordale. Residents in other established Nepean pockets, including McKellar Park and Crestview, report similar experiences with unpredictable power reliability. The shared reality has led many households to invest in generators and craft personal backup plans, treating prolonged outages as a foreseeable event rather than an anomaly.
According to Hydro Ottawa, outages can be either unplanned—resulting from equipment failure, fallen trees, or severe weather—or planned for scheduled maintenance. However, for those living in the affected zones, the distinction matters less than the frequency and the perceived lack of timely communication and infrastructure upgrades to address the root causes.
The situation highlights a growing divide between urban service reliability and the experience in some older suburban communities, where residents feel they must personally shoulder the burden of an unstable electrical grid.
