Everyone's making the same joke about the Downtown Toronto power outage

Residents of Toronto got an unwelcome surprise on Thursday afternoon when a massive power outage hit the downtown area.

Around 12:30 pm, people began reporting the outage in several areas, including Lower Jarvis, Cabbagetown, the Entertainment District, Gerrard, and Bay. Shoppers at the Eaton Centre said the mall was without power and there were TTC disruptions and delays along the 505 Dundas line.

Hydro One and Toronto Hydro acknowledged the power outage and are working on restoration, with some fluctuating estimated times for restoration. Hydro One also confirmed that the outage has been caused by a problem with a transmission circuit.

Meanwhile, Torontonians are doing what we do best — jesting about stuff in the direst of circumstances.

Twitter is rife with memes and jokes about the power outage, with a running theme comparing it to the big Rogers wireless outage we’re all trying to forget about.

In the early hours of July 8, Canadians subscribed to Rogers woke up to no cell and WiFi service. The prolonged outage affected internet services, cell phone signals, debit and credit payments, and even ticketing systems.

With no way to contact anyone, students and workers flocked to local coffee shops and their neighbourhood Starbucks locations to get access to reliable internet.

It’s been a little over a month since and so the helplessness today is reminding a lot of Torontonians of that fateful day.

Rogers is trending on Twitter and being roasted once again, wrapped in the public fury directed towards Toronto Hydro.

Mayor Tory used to work for Rogers.
These electrical outages are part of Toronto’s new bundle package. @TorontoHydro #OutageUpdate https://t.co/xzfA9RN25v

— Unleash Canada (@unleashcanada) August 11, 2022

This outage is somehow Rogers fault

— JD (@JD_Abbiew) August 11, 2022

Me to my remote workplace a little over a month since the Rogers outage: haha sorry folks I know you aren’t going to believe this but another part of our infrastructure failed https://t.co/yi4FKx42am

— Josh (@JoshMLabelle) August 11, 2022

June: ZOOM outage
July: Rogers outage
August: Downtown Toronto Power Outage

I think we finally broke the digital world

— Kelly Boaz (@Kelly_Boaz) August 11, 2022

Nothing like following up a huge Rogers outage with a power outage 😍

— TikkiTacos (@MesseLingard) August 11, 2022

The Rogers outage wasn’t enough, now they cut the power to downtown Toronto. Gonna have to draw my charts on paper. pic.twitter.com/yMPIrw69du

— Karl Schamotta (@Karl_Schamotta) August 11, 2022

The Rogers outage was just a teaser 💀. Downtown Toronto experiencing a power outage #Torontohydro #Poweroutage

— Bill Ly (@Billy6ixx) August 11, 2022

That’s a Toronto Hydro employee taking revenge on rogers🤣🤣

— Sarah Parker (@realsarahp1) August 11, 2022

We know, we know. Rogers is unfairly getting dragged to no fault of their own. But can we deny that it’s hilarious?

Gotta love this city’s humour-based resilience!