Hydro One investigating massive power outage in downtown Toronto

Crane hitting lines suspected to have been behind incident

A large swath of Toronto’s downtown core lost power on Thursday afternoon, leaving office buildings, a major mall and a university campus without electricity after a crane transported by a barge came into contact with a power line.

A spokesperson for Hydro One said crews “visually confirmed” that a collapsed crane in the Port Lands area was the cause of the outage, but added they were still working to determine exactly what happened.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck situation and we’re looking to see how we can reroute power, to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible,” Tiziana Baccega Rosa said in a phone interview.

A Toronto Hydro spokesperson said the outage, which hit around 12:30 p.m., was affecting approximately 10,000 customers.

By mid-afternoon, an outage map showed outages stretching south through the financial district, north to Toronto Metropolitan University and affecting the bustling Eaton Centre mall as well.

The vibrant storefronts at the popular shopping hub, as well as the electronic billboards surrounding Yonge and Dundas Square outside the mall, immediately went dark when the outage hit.

Mark Wells, who stepped into the mall to grab a bite to eat, said the scene that unfolded thereafter was chaotic.

“People were scrambling everywhere, the lights were out in the stores, people were running everywhere, back and forth and out the door,” he said. “Outside the elevators, a lady almost got hurt ... she got shoved up against the door almost.”

The mall eventually closed and security guards stood outside entrances to prevent people from entering.

Many workers in the downtown core headed into the sunshine as the outage disrupted their workday.

“We were just doing our work and it cut out, but it’s just forcing us out on a nice day, so it’s not too bad for me,” software engineer Riaz Virani said.

Deny Soto, who works on the 30th floor of an office tower that’s part of the Eaton Centre, said she and her colleagues were forced to walk all the way down because the outage cut service to the elevators.

It was a “dizzying” process, she said.

“We were going around in circles.”