Officials are asking for the public to report malfunctioning sirens during the monthly test of the emergency system.

The combination of human error and equipment failure is what officials believe was behind the delay in warning sirens Saturday night.

And in some cases, there were reports that sirens failed to sound at all.

But when the sirens are tested, as they are every first day of the month, officials are asking you pay attention to see if the siren in your area works properly.

“I suppose there will always going to be questions as to whether the sirens work. And one of these days, maybe they’ll work right. But those are isolated incidents, and they are the kind of thing that can be rectified and fixed,” said Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

Overall, the governor gave an A-plus grade to Saturday's emergency response --the first time that Hawaii went from no advisory to a full blown warning.

Thursday, when residents hear the monthly test, civil defense officials want to know where the sirens fail, so they can physically check it out.    

 "We are also getting a lot of theft of priority equipment like batteries, and when they steal the batteries that siren can no longer function," said John Cummings, emergency management information officer for the city.

 Cummings reminds that besides sirens, the emergency warning system includes television and radio broadcast alerts as well as social media blasts through Facebook, Twitter and Nixle email.

"We have been using Nixle since 2010, and have almost 15,000 residents who registered by email or ssm. It's very quick and you can get that information and re-tweet it and it gets out very quickly," said Cummings.