EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Hottest Item in Town: A Truck for Moving : Business: Companies have a hard time keeping up with demand for rentals. Most customers plan to relocate locally.

It took the 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 major rental companies said they do not have statistics for the increase in business since the quake, but local managers said volume is extremely heavy. Officials at 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, the moving company officials said. But a few left the San Fernando Valley for Ventura County, elsewhere in California or other states.

“It has been very busy and hectic,” said Scott Brontsema, manager for the 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 might be living in them.

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

“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 was open, with trucks sent from a facility in Montebello.

“We are trying to move as many 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 small house in Oxnard. “I was really scared (by the earthquake),” she said. “I thought I was going to get crushed. I just want out of here.”

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

“I think we got the last one,” said Lyle Kurtz, 31, a doctor from Sherman Oaks who was moving to his brother-in-law’s house.

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

For the trip to Los Angeles, the company offered to lend them 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 rented to people who needed to move their belongings.

Times staff writer Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story.