Toronto blackout leaves royals in the dark; 250,000 were without power

Rebecca Fu, an actuarial intern at Sun Life Financial, took the stairs down from the 20th floor at her office building at York and King after the building went dark. "We got out half an hour early," she said, smiling. "I'm happy about that." Ms. Fu didn't know how she was getting back to her home at Yonge and Finch, but figured the TTC shuttle buses would arrive in the area soon enough.

Not everyone was affected, though.

Wolfgang Kauffmann of Daoust Vukovich, like many streaming south through the core to catch a GO Train, said his office at Queen and Bay didn't go dark. No one had told him what was going on. "Our office wasn't affected," he said. "I just saw all these guys directing traffic."

Mohamed Omar, 42, was arriving by car to his condominium overlooking Kipling TTC station when he noticed the traffic lights were out.

As he rounded Subway Crescent, he found out why.

"I saw big, black smoke coming out of there, as if there was oil burning," Mr. Omar said, pointing to the large hydro installation that extends south from the station. "After a few minutes, there were some flames."

As the fire grew, he watched as a fire truck arrived, but it appeared as though it could not get near the burning transformer, he said.

"After that I just went to take a nap," he said, adding that his building remained mercifully cool for some time despite the outage.

Power is out at Kipling Station and between Kipling and Islington stations, said TTC spokesman Brad Ross. Trains are being turned back at Jane.

In the meantime, signalling problems in the downtown core are slowing trains but not stopping them.

“I’m waiting on a call back from transit control ... to determine if we also have power on the rail,” he said, adding that as far as he knows streetcar power hasn’t been affected, although streetcars along with other vehicles have been impacted from dozens of powerless intersections across the downtown core.

Toronto Fire's hazmat team arrived on scene at about 5:50 p.m. to investigate. "It's all clear at this point," said Captain Mike Strapko. The power is still out east of Highway 427, he said, but traffic is moving.

Fire crews are busy across the west end of the city, he says. "There are a lot of elevator rescues going on," he said, since many condo buildings and office towers have been affected.

Toronto Mayor David Miller issued a statement just before 7 p.m., after tweeting traffic and transit updates for much of the early evening.

“Although the problems originate with the energy supplier and not Toronto Hydro, the City of Toronto is assessing the impact on residents and services,” he stated. “As has been our practice in other such emergencies, the City of Toronto has activated its Emergency Operations Center and stands ready to do what it can to ensure the safety and security of its residents.”

The Independent Electricity System Operator reports on its website the power demand was at 24,567 megawatts at 5 p.m. — exceeding the day's predicted peak of 24,351.

With reports from Iain Marlow, Anna Mehler Paperny and Tony Reinhart