The recent power outage in Toronto’s west end – including most of Roncesvalles – proved once again how unstable the local power supply appears to be.
At around 10 pm on Thursday, January 15th, the lights went out in Toronto’s west end. Groping around in the dark for candles, residents quickly felt their homes cool off. On one of the coldest days of the winter, temperatures hovered around minus 23 with the wind chill. The Roncesvalles area remained without power for about 24 hours, long after power was restored in other areas.
Nick Capra, whose furnace boiler froze, bursting radiator pipes throughout his house, went to the meetings. "It was discouraging," says Nick, "to find out how archaic Toronto’s power system is."
The first of two public meetings took place at Parkdale Public Library, followed by another meeting at the Revue Cinema. Officials from Toronto Hydro and Hydro One, the provincial transmission and distribution system, were on hand to explain what went wrong. They were less forthcoming about how to prevent future outages and what help was available for residents and business owners who’d suffered losses relating to the outage.
It wasn’t the first power outage, nor the first time that Roncesvalles was one of the last places in Toronto to get the lights back on. In 2003, the largest power failure in North America left the entire North American seaboard without power. Long after the power had been restored in most other parts of the city, Roncesvalles was still without power. But even with the experience of 2003 behind them, officials at Toronto Hydro and Hydro One don’t appear to have resolved the problems that appear to have contributed to the delay.
“It was a rah rah kind of meeting,” says Capra. “Everyone was smiling. They didn’t seem to understand the ramifications for people when it’s minus 20 and the power is off for 24 hours.”
At the first meeting, Mike Penstone, Director of System Development for Hydro One, explained what happened. The problems began with a water leak at the Dufferin transformer substation, a facility shared by Toronto Hydro and Hydro One. Hydro One’s electricity generation equipment is housed on the main floor, while Toronto Hydro’s distribution lines are in the basement. For reasons yet unknown, a sprinkler valve, part of the facility’s fire protection system, malfunctioned, spraying water onto the transformers on the main floor. The water drained into an overflow tank, and when the tank was full, the water overflowed, seeping through the concrete floor, dripping onto Toronto Hydro's lines in the basement. The power went out and city crews rushed to shut down the transformer station by taking the transformers off the grid.
At the two recent meetings, representatives from Hydro One and Toronto Hydro pledged to overhaul the substation’s fire protection system.
It wasn’t enough for the assembled crowd of about 70 people. Jeff Derksen, chair of the High Park Residents Association, asked who amongst the official panel assembled at the Parkdale Library, were prepared to give a deadline of less than two weeks for when the Dufferin substation would be repaired or replaced. Mike Penstone was not willing to set a date, although he insisted that the Dufferin substation is Hydro One’s highest priority. Cheri DiNovo, NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park, also couldn’t promise a date. In a subsequent newsletter, she vowed to hold Hydro One accountable on their promise to replace the faulty transformer station, preferably within the year.
Capra called the presentation and comments by the panel a “complete waste of time”. “The engineers showed up with presentation boards and diagrams, but they didn’t think of the one simple thing that someone in the audience pointed out.”
It was an engineer who had worked on power facilities in Europe.
He received a round of applause when he talked about how appalling it was to find a North American power system that mixes power and water. He said it would never happen in Europe, and added that European systems relied on carbon dioxide to extinguish fires in power facilities. He was also astonished to find that the system was a “closed loop”, with no connection to another power source should the primary one fail.
Preventing future outages wasn’t the only issue raised by residents and local business owners. They wanted to know what financial compensation was available for damages caused by the outage. Representatives from Hydro One and Toronto Hydro advised residents to “look at their insurance policy” for help. For Nick, whose damages run to $8,500, it wasn’t good enough.
“There are ramifications to having the power off for such long periods in a climate like ours,” he said. “What about handicapped people? What are they going to do if they’re stuck in a place where they have to rely on elevators?”
Residents also pointed out that insurance claims lead to higher premiums. Also, if an unusually large number of people from the same neighbourhood make similar claims, the entire neighbourhood may be reassessed as risk-prone, increasing premiums for everyone.
As for Nick Capra's boiler, it’s been replaced after six days without heat. “And the day after the furnace was installed,” he says ruefully, the frigid temperatures “suddenly turned absolutely beautiful.”