Power went out in Toronto Monday afternoon, leaving part of the city – and the royal entourage – dark in the middle of a blistering heat wave.
Power was restored to all parts of the city by 8:30 p.m., Hydro One said. About 250,000 customers on the city's west side and downtown were affected – some for nearly four hours.
Hydro One has confirmed a fire at one of their breakers at the Manby transformer station near Kipling Avenue. The fire broke out at 4:40 p.m., spokeswoman Daniele Gauvin said. Hydro One crews are investigating the cause, and don't yet know if the power was blown due to overuse.
The 230-kilovolt line provides power to thousands of Toronto Hydro customers, she said. There were no injuries.
Initial reports suggest the outage spanned from the eastern suburb of Ajax to Yorkdale in the northwest.
At the Fairmont Royal York hotel, the lights went out just as Prince Philip began awarding the Duke of Edinburgh awards in the Canadian room.
Displaying a trademark British stiff upper lip, he sat in the darkmess for a few minutes until the hotel's backup generator lit up the room's four chandeliers. With the power back on, he continued with his remarks, ignoring the blackout entirely.
"Congratulate your parents on having such brilliant children," he told the award winners, before being escorted out of the room and into a service elevator that remained operational.
Mahmood Mirza, a bio-medical engineer, stepped in to direct traffic when he witnessed the chaos after Monday's power outage.
In the darkened hallways, he passed an assembled crowd of black-tie clad men and women who had began arriving for the evening's dinner, many of whom attempted to snap his picture in the dark.
Outside, a crowd gathered near the royal motorcade on York Street, hoping for a glimpse of the Queen.
"She walked by me this morning, said Candi Kubiak, who is in town for the shriners convention. "I'm glad we're staying here. You know they're going to get lights on for her."
Melanie Coates, a spokesperson for the hotel, said everything was going ahead as planned for the royal dinner for 380 guests. She said the Queen was comfortable. Other guests said the air conditioning was still working.
Lights out at the intersection of Front Street and University Avenue in Toronto.
Outside, in the financial district, a symphony of honking horns filled the streets as streams of office workers left their buildings and filled the roads and sidewalks, looking for a way to get home.
One sweating Bay Streeter announced that he had walked down 53 flights of stairs. When the power went out, he was in a meeting with other CIBC employees. Did they all get up to leave? "No, we continued on for about an hour," he said laughing, with his jacket in his hand.
Ali Murtaza, 37, was near the top of the new Telus building on York when the power cut out. "I had to walk down 26 flights," he said. "The intercom jumped on and said it was an exploded transformer. We thought it was in our building, so we got the hell out."
A woman in a pink shirt outside the King subway entrance waved her arms above her head and warned would-be commuters away before she hiked her bag on her shoulder and pushed through the crowd to the streetcar: "The subway's not working!"
People proceed through St. Andrew's subway station under emergency lighting during a power failure in downtown Toronto July 5, 2010.— Peter Jones /Reuters
