Flames, Mylar balloons on BART at 24th Street and Civic Center in SF causes major delays

SAN FRANCISCO - BART reported a major delays Tuesday morning because of smoke, flames and a Mylar balloon found at the 24th Street Mission and Civic Center stations in San Francisco.

For about an hour, BART was running very limited service from the East Bay to San Francisco, with trains being held at the Montgomery Station.  The transit agency advised passengers to find other means of transportation to get to San Francisco. The delay was first reported at 5:18 a.m. and was resolved about 6:30 a.m.

Then, at 7:30 a.m. the Civic Center station was closed for about 20 minutes as crews had to remove a Mylar balloon from the third rail from track, BART tweeted. Muni also wasn't stopping there as crews cleared and inspected the tracks. 

The residual delays caused a nightmare commute for people like Jane Gladney, trying to commute from San Leandro. "I got on BART," she said, "and it was all a mess." Tona Brown of Oakland said she got into a "panic" because she had to scramble to figure out how to get to work.