Honestly I think the only thing one can expect during unexpected situations like these, is that the hotel staff be nice and polite, and that's really the only thing one can complain about either. There are so many factors that come into play and determine how the hotel handles the situation, most of which we as guests will never actually see. We don't know if there's a backup generator or not, or how long it will run, or if the infrastructure is set to give some devices (like door key readers) priority over others (low-level lighting); we don't know if the hotel has staff stuck in whatever traffic jam is surely going on (at least in the San Diego example), leaving the manager chained to the front desk; even the fire system in place in the kitchens may be of a type that requires "all hands on deck" attention, leaving less staff elsewhere (some fire systems are on a "wick" type breaker which melts if it gets too hot, triggering the white foam fire extinguisher. That stuff makes a MESS and contaminates the entire kitchen; if your fire extinguisher goes off, you won't be serving meals for about 3-5 days while you clean up, and without the electric-powered hood fans, the kitchen heats quickly to where you're in danger of tripping the extinguisher, especially if the extinguisher is positioned right above the stoves.

Heck, for food and beverage, you don't even know if the hotel has an adequate supply to ice a buffet for more than a short while--- without electric air conditioning, those cold cuts and cheese are going to heat up pretty quick, which is a massive risk for food poisioning. If the outage happened right after the bartenders filled up their ice bins, you might have empty ice machines, and tons of ice that is no longer considered food-quality because it's had cases of beer shoved in it.

For sure we don't know the quality or quantity of information the hotel is getting; if the power company doesn't know, then the hotel doesn't have an update to give. Perhaps the decision was made against making an announcement in the OP's pool example so as not to panic guests; nothing freaks people out like an "official announcement."

At any rate, I think we should accept that things are not always going to be handled to our liking in these situations; there are just too many moving parts to have a one-size-fits-all script for a hotel manager to follow, and too many variables against filling that script if anyone develops one. As long as people are polite, I'd be willing to go with the flow; however, I used to do restaurant management and have been through 2 fires, several extended power outages and all sorts of other "irrops" so it gives me a much higher tolerance I suppose. (btw during one of the fires it took me a good 45 minutes to locate all of my staff, because one had parked her car then wandered off to do some errands; with her car in the lot but not being able to find her, I could care less about my customers wanting to tip a waiter or get their change, and my attention was 100% on finding the missing salad girl... staff safety comes first and in any of these scenarios, the managers have a LOT of work and responsibility keeping the staff safe so that the staff can keep the guests safe and comfortable).