PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. (WTMJ) – A startling noise reportedly blared for hours in a Wisconsin suburb, prompting some residents to compare it to sound from a horror movie.
It turned out to be a malfunctioning tornado siren.
“It sounded like a horror movie,” Rickey Tartaglia said.
Tartaglia took a video shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday outside of his work.
“It sounded very annoying. It was almost scary. It sounded like ‘The Purge,’” he said.
The alarming noise typically warns people of weather emergencies.
However, Ozaukee County Emergency Management posted on Facebook that the city’s sirens going off at 9 a.m. and around 2 p.m. were errors.
“It was kind of going on all day, yeah,” Todd Stowell said.
He was one of many neighbors who heard the alarming sound.
“Nothing really exciting happens in Port Washington so I was like, ‘Huh, what’s going on?’”
The Port Washington Police Department even alerted residents to stop calling dispatch as the city worked to fix the problem.
“I mean, we’re a pretty quiet, quiet town and so a little noise goes a long way around here,” Stowell said.
WTMJ reached out to the city for an update on the system error but had not heard back yet.
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