EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Rental Truck and Moving Firms Scramble to Meet the Demand : Relocation: Some companies rush vehicles in from elsewhere to fill the void. Many customers plan local moves, but others are leaving the area entirely.

It took U-Haul Co.’s truck rental store in Northridge a few days to get back in business after last week’s earthquake. But as soon as the doors were opened Thursday, a line formed to the end of the parking lot. And the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

“Our business has increased at least tenfold,” said manager Andrew Couplin. “I’ve had people yelling at us, crying, ‘This is an emergency!’ Well, it’s an emergency for a lot of people.”

Spokesmen for other major rental companies and moving firms said they do not have statistics for the increase in business since the quake, but local managers said volume is extremely heavy.

Officials at both Ryder Trucks and U-Haul said they are bringing in several hundred additional trucks to meet the increased demand.

Most customers planned to move locally, from quake-ravaged areas such as Northridge to other parts of the Los Angeles Basin, moving company officials said. But a few left the San Fernando Valley for Ventura County, elsewhere in California or to other states.

“It has been very busy and hectic,” said Scott Brontsema, manager for U-Haul in Canyon Country in the Santa Clarita Valley. “I have a waiting list for trucks with 70 names on it.”

Some people, Brontsema said, have failed to return trucks, causing him to speculate that they may be living in them.

Drivers from Santa Monica-based Western Moving & Storage have been moving two or three families daily since the earthquake, said company President John Black.

“We have been running on maximum capacity,” Black said. “We had every truck that we had out in the area, doing local moving or helping offices move out. It is such a huge increase, I can’t even put it at a percentage.”

The company’s Chatsworth office was slightly damaged but remained open, with trucks sent from an office in Montebello.

“We are trying to move people out before the rains catch us,” Black said.

Lym Tecson said she rented a Ryder truck in Northridge to move from her Reseda apartment to a house in Oxnard. “I was really scared (by the quake),” she said. “I thought I was going to get crushed. I just want out of here.”

At the U-Haul truck rental lot in Northridge, one of the areas hit hardest by Monday’s quake, local residents waited in line Sunday for a chance to move their belongings out of the San Fernando Valley and into homes or garages of friends and relatives. To get trucks to as many people as possible, managers at the store limited the time customers could keep a truck to six hours.

“I think we got the last (truck),” said Lyle Kurtz, 31, a doctor from Sherman Oaks who was moving to his brother-in-law’s house in West Los Angeles. “Our building is not in good shape, and I need to get my valuables out.”

U-Haul officials spent much of the weekend coordinating the arrival of trucks from throughout Southern California to areas hit hardest by the quake.

For trucks bound into Los Angeles, the company offered the cargo space to relief agencies such as the Red Cross. The agencies filled them in places such as San Diego and Riverside with goods for quake victims, and brought them to the Valley and other stricken areas. Once here, the trucks were emptied and then rented out.

For some quake victims, however, success in renting a truck or hiring movers did not mean that precious belongings were saved. A spokesman for El Segundo’s A Gentle Giant Moving Co. said movers must consider their own safety before agreeing to work in dangerous areas.

“One guy scheduled a move with us and went crazy when we wouldn’t enter a red-tagged (condemned) building,” the spokesman said. “It’s sad he’s losing his belongings, but it’s not worth anybody’s safety.”

The worst situation, said Steve Boross, an operations manager for Diversified Moving/Allied Van Lines in Chatsworth, is having no trucks available and being unable to suggest an alternative.

“Sometimes they call, crying, and I can’t even refer them anywhere because the whole industry is maxed out,” he said.

Times staff writer Tracey Kaplan contributed to this article.