The state’s 911 dispatch system went offline for two hours Tuesday afternoon, forcing residents to call their local police department’s administrative numbers for emergencies during the dispatch system outage.

Notification of the system’s failure began circulating on municipal police department’s social media pages and town websites at about 1:45 p.m. The State 911 Department announced at about 3:45 p.m. that the system had been repaired and the public was able to call 911 for emergencies.

“The Massachusetts State 911 Department continues to investigate the cause of the disruption,” the department said. “We will provide further information as it becomes available.”