Half an hour into the incident, the operator of Train 225 asked BART’s central control center about firefighters in the tunnel near his train. “Are you sending them back to help with the evacuation, or should I start now?”“No word from the Fire Department,” a train controller answered. (Trains) 225 and 451, be advised we have BART police and Fire Department personnel in all tracks between 19th Street and Lake Merritt stations. BART finally allowed the operators to begin evacuating their passengers at 5:48 p.m., 58 minutes after the incident began. It took another 25 minutes before the train operators confirmed that all passengers, including one in a wheelchair, had been safely offboarded.
