Nothing demonstrates the centrality of electricity in community life more clearly than when it suddenly fails. The utility and the public it serves had a powerful encounter with that reality after a nine-hour outage on Thursday spanning much of downtown Honolulu.

This episode is unrelated to other developments across Hawaiian Electric’s system, including a new plan aimed at better protection for areas at risk of wildfires: the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program. But all of it should signal to the public that they, as well as the utility, have preparation tasks to complete to avoid the worst of the potential hazards.

For Hawaiian Electric, that means addressing needed improvements already on the summer schedule for the Iwilei/downtown area, bolstering the system against a future recurrence, said company spokesman Darren Pai.

The conditions for last week’s problems actually began Wednesday night when a fault in an underground cable caused a more limited outage. The wider power failure resulted because the lines remaining in service became overloaded the next morning, Pai said.

The impact was severe. About 900 customer accounts, including those connected to hundreds of tenants, were involved. In addition to various inconveniences and dysfunctions, this meant a loss of revenue to businesses and a lapse in public services from some government offices. Traffic was affected by the power failure at signalized intersections.

That incident left an indelible impression on the thousands affected. But the importance of preparations to avoid calamities such as Maui’s brutal wildfires of August 2023 may be harder to convey.

This is why it’s good to see the city conducting a public conversation about the PSPS, in which power could be preemptively shut off when weather conditions elevate the dangers of wildfires. Officials have raised concerns about impacts on powered infrastructure, which then could impede firefighting; these need to be addressed.

Hiro Toiya, the city’s emergency management director, on Thursday rightly told the Citizens Advisory Commission on Emergency Management that switching off power in danger zones, especially where there are overhanging power lines, dry vegetation and strong winds, “may make sense.”

The program officially takes effect July 1, after which Hawaiian Electric indicates it will cut off power in specific zones when conditions become too risky to life and property.

PSPS areas on each island, generally in the leeward districts, are defined in maps that can be viewed online (hawaiianelectric.com/psps), where further details on the program also are described. On Oahu, the zones include Mokuleia on the North Shore and the approach to Kaena Point, as well as much of the Waianae Coast to Ko Olina and Makakilo, and part of Schofield Barracks.

Those who need to be most concerned about their readiness for this include customers who use crucial medical equipment, in which loss of power can have devastating consequences, Pai said. They should register for the special advance notifications of an impending shutoff, he said. The utility’s mobile app can provide alerts, and notifications can be enabled by calling 808-548-7311 or heading to HECO’s dedicated page at hawaiianelectric.com/medicalneedsalerts.

People in these areas should have backup power for their equipment. Anyone potentially affected should have an emergency plan: A handbook providing guidance can be downloaded at hawaiianelectric.com/safety.

The disruption of a power shutoff is undeniable, but with dry weather and the high winds of hurricane season on the horizon, public safety can and should take precedence.