Sarles (Photo by James Calder)

After some 2,000 customers aboard Green Line trains were stranded during yesterday evening’s rush hour commute, Metro General Manager Richard Sarles offered an apology for the nightmarish trip home.

In a statement posted to Metro’s website, Sarles admitted Metro could have done far better in responding to the people stuck aboard a pair of trains that lost power in darkened tunnels. The delays began after a fire outside the Anacostia station forced trains to run along a single track all the way from Navy Yard to Southern Avenue.

Though most riders stayed, between 50 and 150 chose to leave by themselves, and walked along the track bed toward Anacostia, where they were pulled up by Metro employees.

Despite Sarles’ apologetics, passengers who endured last night’s mayhem are still incensed about the experience, and say that Metro employees did a poor job in handling the situation.

“I was one of those commuters who was in that situation yesterday it was one of the worse experiences of my life,” writes Shae Locke. “The Metro employees actually made it worse from the very rude station manager at Waterfront to the four different bus drivers that rode pass the bust stops with people standing at them.”

Locke adds that she got home by walking the entire way from Navy Yard to Anacostia on an evening during which D.C. was the subject of several severe weather alerts.

Here’s Sarles’ full statement:

To Our Green Line Customers,

We apologize for the extraordinary delays you experienced last night, and in particular, to those who had such an alarming experience on the two trains that lost power.

While we have improved the speed with which we respond to incident trains, there is more that can and will be done to better assist our customers during such incidents. We are working to improve our internal communications and interagency coordination. I want to thank DCFD for their actions in support of our customers and employees last night. The responsibility for improvement rests squarely on our shoulders at Metro.

I agree with our customers that what happened last night was unacceptable and we are going to make further specific changes to improve our emergency response.