Toronto Hydro warns some customers may be without power until Thursday

Sparks fly from a hydro pole transformer on Victoria Park as crews work to restore power to the area, Wednesday, March 4, 2015.

Toronto Hydro says while crews are working through the night to restore power to approximately 3,100 customers, some people may still be in the dark until Thursday morning.

At the height of the blackout on Tuesday, approximately 87,000 customers across the city were without power as freezing drizzle and snow hit the city. Toronto Hydro said the cause of the power outages was a downed Hydro One transmission line, and dozens of hydro pole and transformer fires.

According to the utility company, Tuesday's fires were triggered by a dangerous mix of salt, extreme cold and freezing rain.

"The combination of water and salt is, actually, an excellent conductor of electricity," Toronto Hydro CEO Anthony Haines told reporters Wednesday afternoon. "So the electricity that’s in the wire goes through what are normally the insulators and hits the pole, and the pole goes on fire."

More than 50 hydro-pole blazes were reported Tuesday night in a span of three hours. Each pole takes approximately four hours to repair, meaning some businesses weren’t able to open Wednesday.

"We have no power in the factory, so there's nothing much more we can do today," said John Wu, a spokesperson for a local textile factory. "Unfortunately, that’s the cost of doing business in Canada."

The City of Toronto has opened a reception centre at the Edithvale Community Centre, located at 131 Finch Ave. W., for those who are still affected by the power outage.

"This extreme cold has been very hard on the people of Toronto," Mayor John Tory told reporters Wednesday afternoon. "It's been kind of a continuous arm-wrestle with Mother Nature where we’re going to win."

Earlier on Wednesday, some Toronto Transit Commission users were forced to take a shuttle bus after subway service between Warden and Kennedy Stations and on the Scarborough Rapid Transit line was suspended due to power and signal problems. Service resumed later Wednesday afternoon.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Ashley Rowe