Los Angeles residents move to NYC, northeast amid wildfires, insurance crisis

As catastrophic wildfires continue to rage in Southern California, some Los Angeles residents aren’t waiting around to see if their city survives.

Instead, they’re packing up and moving across the country to the relative safety of the Northeast.

Real estate mogul Ryan Serhant, star of Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan,” said in an interview on “The Claman Countdown” Monday on Fox Business that within less than 24 hours of the deadly fire in the exclusive LA enclave of Pacific Palisades. , his real estate firm, SERHANT, began receiving calls from agents in and around Los Angeles saying they had clients interested in relocating to the East Coast.

“On Thursday it was lifted,” Serhant said. “Of course, on Friday it got worse and worse. We’ve been making those calls all weekend and we’re starting to facilitate rentals, but now they’re going back to purchases.”

Serhant said he’s heard from customers that the fires were the “last straw” that prompted them to give up and leave California for good.

“They’re moving to Connecticut, New Jersey, parts of Long Island, the Hamptons, New York City … and all over Florida,” Serhant said of the recent LA transplants.

Even before the fires engulfed Los Angeles, people have been leaving California in droves.

This trend began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and continued last year, according to figures from some of the country’s largest moving companies, AKTK reported.

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Stay up-to-date with NYP’s coverage of the devastating wildfires in the LA area

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Data from U-Haul, Atlas Van Lines and United Van Lines released days before the wildfires showed more people moving out of California than moving in.

For example, U-Haul reported that outbound customers accounted for 51% of one-way traffic flowing from the Golden State, while only 49% was inbound.

A new fire broke out in Ventura County

The exodus of panicked Angelenos comes as California firefighters, who have been battling flames on multiple fronts for a week, were forced to tackle a new blaze that broke out Monday in Ventura County.

The latest fire, named the Auto Fire, was first reported around 7:15 PM PST in a dry riverbed along the Santa Clara River in an agricultural area near Ventura Boulevard and Auto Center Drive in Ventura, CA.

The blaze tore through tall brush and burned about 56 acres before about 75 firefighters halted its advance, according to Cal Fire.

Crews remained at the scene overnight putting out hot spots. No structural damage was reported.

Since Jan. 7, multiple wildfires have ravaged parts of Southern California, killing at least 24 people, burning more than 40,500 acres and destroying at least 12,300 structures, including a string of multimillion-dollar homes belonging to stars Hollywood as Billy. Crystal, John Goodman, and Anna Farris.

As of Tuesday, the Palisades Fire was only 17% contained after a week-long battle to stop it from spreading, while the Eaton Fire near Altadena was 35% contained, Cal Fire reported.

The wild winds of Santa Ana return

The outbreak of this latest fire coincided with a dire warning from the National Weather Service about the return of strong Santa Ana winds bringing more dry, fast-moving air to the box-like environment in and around LA .

Early Tuesday, winds gusted up to 40 mph in coastal and valley areas and 50 mph in the mountains, National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Hall said. Winds of up to 65 mph were expected to persist through midday Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

The weather service said strong winds combined with extremely dry conditions created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could erupt into an inferno. According to Hall, conditions are such that embers can spread up to 3 miles ahead of the flames and fire tornadoes are possible.

The agency’s rare “Extreme Fire Danger” warning applies to all of Southwest California, suggesting the hard-hit region could be looking at tougher days ahead.

“We’re not in the clear yet, and we shouldn’t let our guard down,” said Los Angeles Fire Chief. Christine Crowley at a news conference on Monday.

Pink magic powder to the rescue

Fire crews are relying on a bright pink-red fire retardant called Phos-Check to smother the flames by dropping it from the air. Officials said they used thousands of gallons of the vividly colored substance over the past week, the Associated Press reported.

Phos-Check is sold by the company Perimeter, and has been used to fight fires in the US since 1963. It is also the most widely used fire retardant in the world, according to a 2022 Associated Press report.

While the exact chemical composition of Phos-Check is unknown, according to the BBC, its manufacturer has previously revealed that it is 80% water, 14% fertilizer-type salts and 6% iron oxide, which gives the substance its appearance. . shadow to make it visible from a distance.

So how do fire retardants work? According to the US Forest Service, which has used 13 planes to drop suppressants on the Los Angeles fires, they help extinguish oxygen fires and slow the rate of burning by cooling and covering vegetation and other surfaces.

Perimeter has advised the public to wash off the pink dust with warm water and mild detergent as soon as it is safe to do so, because the longer it dries, the harder it is to remove.

Anticipated losses increase

AccuWeather on Monday once again raised its estimate of fire-related economic losses to between $250 billion and $270 billion, from a previous forecast of $225 billion to $250 billion.

“These fast-moving, wind-driven blizzards have created one of the costliest wildfire disasters in modern U.S. history,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. “Hurricane force winds sent flames blasting through neighborhoods filled with multi-million dollar homes. The devastation left behind is heartbreaking and the economic toll is staggering.”

JP Morgan analysts last week predicted that insured losses from the fire could rise to as much as $20 billion. Meanwhile, a new analysis from Well Fargo Securities puts the figure at $30 billion and possibly as high as $40 billion.

It comes amid an ongoing insurance crisis in California, where homeowners in fire-prone areas have lost coverage in increasing numbers over the past several years as major carriers such as State Farm, Allstate and Nationwide stopped writing new policies to mitigate risk.

Unable to find carriers willing to insure their properties, just under 500,000 Californians were forced to sign up for the Fair Access to Insurance Claims (FAIR) plan, the last state-sponsored insurer.

The wildfires burning in LA are expected to be the costliest in California history and will likely worsen the already precarious insurance situation.

In an effort to mitigate the crisis, California’s insurance authority last week issued a one-year ban on canceling policies in areas affected by the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires.