If your power went out in the downtown core yesterday afternoon, one of the city's squirrels is to blame.
On Wednesday afternoon, thousands of locals and businesses were left without power south of Queen Street West down to Front Street, and from Bay Street west to Spadina Avenue.
Hydro One said the outage, which began just before 2 p.m., was caused by a loss of supply at the John Transmission Station, located in the Financial District near John Street and Wellington Street West.
When power returned around 5 p.m., Hydro One said the outage was "caused by a squirrel making contact with a transformer which subsequently caused a breaker to fail."
CBC Toronto reported the squirrel did not survive.
The utility company said the John Transmission Station already has a number of barriers installed to keep animals safe and out of the station. As a result of Wednesday's incident, Hydro One said it will "look at additional measures" to prevent similar occurrences.
We can confirm that today’s outage at John Transmission Station was caused by a squirrel making contact with a transformer which subsequently caused a breaker to fail.
— Hydro One (@HydroOne) February 5, 2025
John Transmission Station has a number of barriers to keep animals safe and out of the station. We will look…
In the event of a future power outage, locals can access Toronto Hydro's outage map online to see which regions and how many customers are affected.
