Torontonians are reacting after things got a little squirrely downtown on Wednesday when the power was knocked out for a few hours!
According to Hydro One, a squirrel coming into contact with a transformer at John Transmission Station caused a breaker to fail, resulting in an outage in the Financial District.
Hydro One posted on X about the outage just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The power was restored just before 5 p.m.
We’re aware of the outage affecting the electricity supply to @TorontoHydro and their customers.
— Hydro One (@HydroOne) February 5, 2025
Our crews are on-site at John Transmission Station investigating the cause and we’re working together to restore power as safely and quickly as possible.
Being without power is…
The utility company shared that the station has multiple barriers meant to ensure animals are safe, and that they can’t enter the station.
Following the incident, Hydro One said it is looking into ways to prevent future occurrences of animal activity causing power disruptions.
The incident impacted about 5,000 people, according to CBC, who reported that the squirrel did not survive.
TORONTO RESPONDS TO POWER OUTAGE
After the power went out, people in Toronto took to one of their favourite hobbies: online commentary.
Some people connected the outage to recent political news.
“So much for cutting power to the US @fordnation. Hydro One can’t even provide reliable power to Canada’s largest city,” wrote one person on X.
“Not even the squirrel 🐿️ likes capitalism.😂,” another person said.
For others, the story was a Toronto classic.
“Change for once instead of the usual suspect, the raccoon,” one person posted.
“Raccoon-1 Squirrel-1. It’s a power outage tie! What animal is next? A skunk?” questioned another, referencing a power outage in February 2024 caused by a raccoon coming into contact with a transformer, leaving 7,000 people without power.
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Meanwhile, some are grateful to the critter.
“Thanks to the squirrel I got to leave work early yesterday 🤪,” one person posted to X.
“Cheers brother you got me home a few hours early.”
And some are just stating the obvious.
“That’s nuts…” a Torontonian joked on X.
