Malfunction caused West Dundee siren to go off for nearly an hour

West Dundee officials are apologizing after a pre-dawn emergency alarm took on a life of its own early this morning and kept going for the better part of an hour.

Officials said a monthly emergency warning siren test was conducted Tuesday morning and, at that time, a loud siren at Route 31 and Boncosky Road did not power down after the test.

However, officials said, the siren shut itself down after 15 minutes. Officials said a service call was set up to repair the siren.

But, the defense siren activated on its own again at 4 a.m. today, and then wouldn't shut down, officials said.

QuadCom, the emergency dispatch center that remotely controls the siren, was immediately contacted to shut it down, but it failed to shut down remotely, officials said. Emergency crews also attempted to manually shut the siren down, but the manual shutdown lever failed.

Kimberly Pudlo, a resident of Fairhills Drive who can see the siren from her backyard, said the early morning wake-up call caused some confusion. But the family presumed it was a mistake after Tuesday's malfunction and the fact that it did not make the typical whirring sound.

“The kids burst into our bedroom because they knew it wasn't a normal siren alarm,” Pudlo said. “They weren't panicked, but we were all annoyed. It was just a constant siren and it wasn't shutting off.”

Pudlo said the family went back to sleep when the siren was finally shut down. Crews cut power to the siren at 4:53 a.m., officials said.

Officials said in a news release: “We sincerely apologize for the disruption this caused for so many residents in the area of the siren. We recognize that this event caused anxiety and fear for many, particularly children. We want to assure you that we find these malfunctions entirely unacceptable and will work with our vendors to make absolutely certain that this does not happen again.”