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A raccoon caused an outage that left 7,000 Toronto Hydro customers without power for nearly three hours on Thursday night.
Toronto Hydro said the outage due to a Hydro One issue affected “…customers in and around St. Clair Avenue W to Gerrard Street W and Avenue Road to the Don Valley Parkway,” in a statement on X.
After investigating the cause, Hydro One said in a statement on X, that the animal made contact with Hydro One’s equipment at a downtown Toronto station.
TTC subway Line 1 was out of service from Bloor-Yonge to Union due to the power failure but quickly resumed.
Due to the blackout, Toronto Fire Services said on X that, “crews are responding to a higher number of elevator rescues in these areas.”
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)’s Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC) was also affected by the power failure, which prompted TMU to release an evacuation notice.
All occupants were required to leave the building including employees until the issue was resolved.
The area affected customers from the start of the outage at 7:40 p.m. till its power was restored around 10:30 p.m. according to Hydro One’s outage map.
Reporter, On The Record, Winter 2024
