Prince Philip was unfazed by the power outage at the Fairmont Royal York on Monday.DAVE CHAN
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.
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.
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!"
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
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