Twice recently I was in hotels with no power in the USA. Communication can indeed make a huge difference as can the attitudes of management and staff, who should be willing to apologize and be proactive even if the lack of power may not be their fault.

One instance was a case of the hotel building having no power, even though nearby buildings and traffic signals seemed to be fully operational. This was for most of a very hot summer day and the lack of AC was bordering on a health and safety issue rather than just discomfort. The hotel did nothing and offered nothing, not even an apology. Since the problem affected only the hotel building, one would assume that the outage was the fault of the hotel in some sense. When I
asked about the evening reception, which I was paying for rather than accessing as a frequent guest benefit, the manager made a rude and hostile remark that I should know it was cancelled because the power had been out earlier. There was no apology nor any attempt to provide either drinks or food that did not require electricity. In fact, my impression is that the hotel viewed the power outage as a lucky opportunity to save on the cost of the evening snacks and drinks that they otherwise would have been required to provide. (The power was restored before discarding food would have been an issue.) An apology
from the manager would have helped a lot.

The other instance occurred at a large boutique hotel in Santa Fe when the entire state of NM lost power. Here the hotel staff were proactive in telling people what the situation was, finding open restaurants for guests, and providing a buffet in the bar and lobby area consisting of cold items plus things like chicken that could be cooked on outdoor grills. It was interesting but a good experience that gave me a positive impression of the hotel.