A squirrel eats a nut in Montreal on Sunday, November 22, 2020, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and worldwide. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)
A power outage in downtown Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, which affected thousands of residents and businesses, was caused by a squirrel, according to Hydro One.
The outage occurred just before 2 p.m. in the city’s Financial District. Hydro One reported that the loss of power originated from the John Transmission Station, located near John Street and Wellington Street West. The utility company quickly responded, and power was restored around three hours later, just before 5 p.m.
In a statement on social media, Hydro One explained that a squirrel made contact with a transformer at the station, which caused a breaker to fail. This led to the power disruption. Despite efforts to keep animals away from the station, the company acknowledged that the squirrel’s actions led to the incident.
“John Transmission Station has a number of barriers to keep animals safe and out of the station,” Hydro One said. “We will look at additional measures to put in place to prevent future incidents of this nature.” However, it was not mentioned whether the squirrel survived the encounter.
This is not the first time that a rodent has caused a power outage in the city. In May of the previous year, another squirrel came into contact with a transformer near George Street and King Street East. That incident led to a fire, which then caused a power outage in the area.
Hydro One assured the public that they are looking into improving the safety measures at their stations to prevent such incidents from happening again.
