Time Warner Cable says it will make calls to Ecuador, Japan and Myanmar free for its residential and business customers following earthquakes in all three.

That will include landline and mobile numbers and will be retroactive to April 13 to Myanmar, to April 14 to Japan, and April 16 to Ecuador.

“For all our customers who have loved ones in Ecuador, Japan or Myanmar, we hope that being able to reach out to them any time and as often as possible brings some comfort during this extremely difficult time,” said Time Warner Cable Chairman Rob Marcus in a statement.

TWC subs don't have to do anything about the calls already made. They will automatically get a credit.

Free calls will continue until May 19.

On March 28, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake rattled buildings and nerves in the Los Angeles area.

The quake, centered in Orange County near La Habra, was the second significant tremor in a very short period of time. Less than two weeks prior, a 4.4 quake with an epicenter in Westwood sent news anchors on
KTLA-TV scrambling for cover while live on the air. The mayor and emergency officials used the events, which thankfully caused no deaths or significant damage, to remind L.A. residents and visitors to be prepared.

“This [La Habra quake] is not a big earthquake, but it should cause everyone to take some actions,” Keith Knudsen, who studies earthquakes with the U.S. Geological Survey and is based out of Menlo Park, Calif, said. “Almost everybody has something more they can do … the fraction of people who have really prepared is pretty low.”

Let’s be honest: the chance of a major earthquake hitting during the three days of The Cable Show are not great (knock on wood). But it’s never a bad thing to know the protocols out of an abundance of caution.

California school children grow up knowing the basic tenets of “drop, cover and hold on.” Drop Cover Hold On (dropcoverholdon.com) is the URL for the Southern California Earthquake Center’s website. And if you remember anything in the event of a quake, let it be that.

Grabbing on to a desk in an office building or hotel room furniture until the shaking stops will help protect against falling debris, Knudsen said.

“The most frequent injury in California is from falling objects or trying to run,” Dr. Lucy Jones, USGS seismologist and science adviser on seismic safety to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, recently
wrote in a Reddit chat on earthquakes.

In newer buildings, falling debris is a much bigger concern than collapse. Los Angeles-area codes started to require strong earthquake resistance infrastructure in the 1970s, according to Knudsen, while those built after 1997 were required to meet the safest code requirements yet.

Local cable operators also have emergency plans, knowing that any disruption in service during a disaster would not only be a nuisance but could also potentially deprive the public of vital information.

“We’ve got programs in place, as do other MSOs and other companies similar to ours,” Time Warner Cable director of enterprise business continuity and crisis management Joe Viens said. 

Forecasting earthquakes is a famously inexact science, but most geologists agree the chance of a significant quake in the next 30 years somewhere in California is very good.

The chance of an earthquake equaling the 1994 Northridge quake that claimed nearly 60 lives and registered a 6.7 on the Richter scale is close to 100% over the next 30 years, according to Knudsen. He says the chance of a 7.5 or bigger in Southern California is near 60%.

“We look at evidence of when the past earthquakes have occurred,” Knudsen said. “We’re well within the average time span when you’d have big earthquakes … No one would be surprised if the San Andreas produced a big earthquake in Southern California tomorrow.”

There is a precedent for a California earthquake coinciding with a national cable-industry event. On Jan. 16, 1994, celebrities, newsmakers and cable industry executives gathered at Los Angeles’s Pantages Theatre for the CableACE Awards.  Hours later, the city was rocked by the deadliest earthquake in five years.

“If I remember right, I think it was a black-tie event,” former Cablevision magazine editor Craig Leddy, now the founder of Interactive TV Works, recalled. “Cable was really trying to be glamorous.”

HBO took home 34 of 88 awards at the ceremony, according to the Los Angeles Times, including a win by The Larry Sanders Show for best comedy, beating out Beavis and Butt-head. The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom won best movie or miniseries.

After the show, people went back to their hotels or off to afterparties.

Leddy was already up at the Century Plaza hotel when the quake struck because he had an early flight back to New York.  “It sounded like a big rainstorm and then everything started shaking,” he said. For Leddy, who grew up in the Midwest and lived on the East Coast, this was unchartered territory. 

“I said, ‘Wow, if that’s only a tremor, I’m a real wimp,’ ” he recalled. “That thing scared the hell out of me.”

It wasn’t a tremor. The Northridge earthquake struck at 4:31 a.m. about 20 miles northwest of downtown L.A. on Jan. 17, 1994, registering 6.7 on the Richter scale. More than 60 people were killed and damage was caused up to 85 miles away.

“I already had my bags packed, so I got dressed and I did what I thought was the only logical thing to do, which was to clean out the mini-bar,” he said. He took snacks, candy bars and a few beers, “because you never know when beers are going to come in handy in a disaster.”

He saw electrical transformers blowing up in the distance. He walked out into a completely dark hallway and smelled gas. The hotel made an announcement that someone would be coming to escort guests out, but Leddy wasn’t waiting around. He and others started feeling their way down the stairwell.

In the lobby, a broken pipe was gushing water. Leddy passed out minibar snacks, some to people with only towels wrapped around their bodies.

A colleague waded through the water to get to a rental car and gave Leddy a lift to the airport.

“Of course, we land in New York and there’s a big snowstorm,” he said.