Why You Should Never Take Kate Carraway to IKEA
Polling Booth: "Kick a Ginger" Controversy
Subway Suicide Statistics Released
Humane Society officials charged with cruelty to animals
Days of Carltons Past
After yet another weird week for the Canadian markets, the magical hand of fate itself decided to step in to fuck with our economy today, as power was knocked out at many key financial buildings downtown. Torontoist contributor Tim Kiladze, who works in the Exchange Tower, says: "Power went out in the entire building around 1 p.m. Everything was out, including emergency lighting in the stairwells (très dangerous). A few hundred people were standing around on the main floor just waiting....Water wasn't working on our floor. Phones were out too." According to the Star, First Canadian Place, the RBC Centre, and "other downtown office towers" were blackened, but the stock exchange—running on backup power—is still open and still headed steadily downwards for the day. Kiladze, meanwhile, reports that as of 3:00 p.m. at the Exchange Tower, "Power JUST went back on, but the lights are dimming." Metaphor!
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebookTIP US OFF
Most Popular
Why You Should Never Take Kate Carraway to IKEA (42)
Haydain Neale, 1970–2009 (37)
The Lee's Palace Mural is Dead! Long Live the Lee's Palace Mural! (24)
Edgewater Hotel Sign Comes Down (18)
Transit City and Transit Cities (18)
Peeve Patrol (17)
Historicist: "The city that nobody loves" (16)
Polling Booth: "Kick a Ginger" Controversy (15)
The Making of a Medley (14)
Subway Suicide Statistics Released (14)
No switchboard or emergency lighting? Okay, that's just sloppy — an article of faith like "too big to fail" was never supposed to apply to utilities.
And no water? Go on, try to get it turned off on purpose some time when a pipe springs a big leak.
I also work in the Exchange Tower. Power went off around 1:20pm, by my recollection.
@EricSmith: There was no water, but I presume this is because the pumps had no power. When the juice did come back on, it was in two stages -- first, the emergency lights came back on, then everything else about 10 minutes later. I think this is because the loss of power was far enough 'upstream' that both main and emergency power feeds were affected.
Our phones worked all the way through the blackout, but then again in my office we all have separate numbers (not extensions) so that may have something to do with it.
Curiously, the affected buildings weren't really clustered together, and most of the surrounding buildings (e.g. First Canadian Place, adjacent to my building, contrary to news reports, as we could clearly see fully lit floors when looking Eastward from my office) all seemed fine.
As usual, the newspaper gets their geography wrong. The RBC Centre is a building under construction at the corner of Simcoe & Wellington. Royal Bank Plaza is on Bay St. between Wellington and Front.
How'd they get it wrong? They gave the address for RBC Centre, not Royal Bank Plaza. Royal Bank Plaza didn't lose power.
There were other errors: calling Exchange Tower "First Canadian Place West" and the fact that the GO Transit offices apparent didn't lose power, contrary to various media reports.