Most service has been restored after emergency 911 calls to dispatch centers in Washington and Oregon failed to go through early Thursday. 

According to the Associated Press, some emergency calls failed to go through because of a glitch in the system operated by CenturyLink. 

Service was restored by 6:30 a.m. in Oregon, and by 8 a.m. in Washington, said Kerry Zimmer, a CenturyLink spokeswoman located in Spokane, Wash. 

Luckily, there were not reports of emergencies in which people were unable to receive help because of the outage, Zimmer and Washington state Emergency Management Division spokesman Wendy Freitag said. 

"I guess overnight was a good time," for an outage, Zimmer said. "But no 911 outage is good."

The ability to get service to dozens of emergency dispatch centers is a priority because of the safety issue, Zimmer said. 

The first outage issue was reported around 1:30 a.m. in Sheridan, Ore. Zimmer said the issues in Oregon and Washington were isolated and not connected. 

Currently, the cause of the outages is not known, and Zimmer could not speculate about whether it could be blamed on computer hacking, or on an equipment issue. 

A phone line or two continued to work at some centers, while others had all lines out of service. 

During the power outage, people calling about emergencies were told to use a cellphone, which often works better than a landline. They were also urged to try and call non-emergency numbers for dispatchers. Citizens were also told to go to a fire station in person if they could not reach 911 for help. 

Freitag said the state Emergency Management Division, which coordinates dispatch centers and makes contingency plans, will investigate what caused the outage. 

"Is there some vulnerability or gap we need to fill? I'm sure it will be done very thoroughly in this case," she said.

The King County Office of Emergency Management in Seattle plans to speak with CenturyLink to prevent an outrage from occurring again.