2009 Toronto blackout

The 2009 Toronto blackout was a massive power outage that occurred in the southwest portion of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on January 15, 2009, at approximately 10:00 p.m. EST. The blackout affected 22,000 residential and business customers or 100,000 people and it was one of the largest electrical blackouts in the city's history since the Northeast Blackout of 2003 and the Northeast Blackout of 1965 both of which affected several states in the United States and in most areas of Ontario leaving thousands of Toronto residents without electricity for several hours or even days.
The blackout
A burst pipe at the Hydro One/Toronto Hydro transformer substation at 1045 Dufferin Street near Dufferin and Bloor Streets, which sparked a massive flood of water at the control centre forced hydro crews to shut down all eight breakers. The result left thousands of people in the dark on one of the coldest nights of the year. Temperatures were down in the -20s Celsius range for much of the night, the blackout continued well into the following morning of January 16, 2009 with the thermometer only moving slightly up by the time the sun came up. The city responded by opening several warming centres where residents without heat could go to warm up. Subway service on TTC's Bloor-Danforth subway line was suspended between Keele and St. George. As a result, about 40 shuttle buses were driven out to replace the subway trains during the blackout, the result was chaotic during the morning rush. Full subway service did not resume until just after 2:30 pm. Most traffic lights, which had no backup power in the blackout zone, were knocked out. Most intersections in the blackout zone were considered to be all-way stops. The boundaries of the blackout zone was St. Clair Ave. to the north, Queen St. to the south, Jane St. to the west and Spadina to the east. Many schools and businessess in the blackout zone were also closed for the remainder of the day. Power had been restored by 3:00 p.m. to about 75 per cent of the approximately 22,000 households originally affected by the blackout and was fully restored to most of the affected areas at around 9:30 p.m. that night. It was later learned that faulty wires may have been blamed to spark this massive power outage.

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