Thousands without power in downtown Toronto after raccoon makes contact with Hydro One equipment

Thousands of Toronto Hydro customers were without power on Thursday evening thanks to a raccoon that made contact with Hydro One equipment at a downtown station, the utilities say.

The outage began at about 7:40 p.m. but all power was restored by about 10:20 p.m., according to Toronto Hydro.

At its peak at about 9:30 p.m., about 7,000 Toronto Hydro customers were affected.

The utility said customers in the following boundaries were affected: St. Clair Avenue West to Gerrard Street West and Avenue Road to the Don Valley Parkway.

Hydro One said on X, formerly Twitter, that the outage was on its transmission system that affects Toronto Hydro.

"Crews have determined that a raccoon made contact with our equipment at a downtown Toronto station," Hydro One said.

Toronto Fire Services said on X that it responded to elevator rescues in about seven buildings. No injuries were reported.