Several cities devastated by natural disasters are competing for building materials, construction labor and home appliances, potentially affecting timelines and driving prices up. Back-to-back hurricanes, including Hurricane Helene, ravaged parts of North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee in 2024. On the other side of the country, the Los Angeles wildfires have leveled neighborhoods, destroying more than 12,000 structures.

Can disaster recovery resources keep up with so much demand?

“We’ve had disasters like these, but never anything like this where we’ve had so many,” said Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily analytics at CoStar, Arlington, Va.

If there is a bright side, it’s that negotiations with insurance companies, obtaining permitting approval and other steps in the recovery process can stagger the start of projects so that they aren’t all breaking ground at once. This could alleviate strain on supply chains and labor forces. However, as more sites become project-ready, the demand for resources is expected to increase wait times for materials and costs.

Demand for engineering resources, architectural resources and labor could become intense.

“You’re going to have a Hunger Games-style competition for materials and labor,” predicts Sean Burton, CEO at the Los Angeles-based multifamily development firm Cityview. 

Already, some construction crews working along Florida’s Gulf Coast are considering relocating to Los Angeles because they expect more opportunities there, according to Saket Soni, executive director of Resilience Force, an organization that helps train, deploy and protect disaster recovery workers. 

Burton suggested that the government, homeowners and contractors purchase appliances and building materials in bulk, even if they have to store items in warehouses. This could reduce costs and expedite the redevelopment effort in Southern California, particularly if the Trump administration’s attempts to impose stiff tariffs—including a 25% tariff on steel—are successful.

Others, such as Kishani Perera, a Los Angeles-based interior designer, suggest opting for unconventional materials to alleviate delays: aluminum instead of lumber framing, sheep’s wool instead of fiberglass insulation and magnesium board instead of drywall. These alternatives are climate- and tariff-resilient.

“All these materials can be found in America,” she said. 

Already, drawn-out insurance negotiations, labor shortages and long waits for high-end materials and appliances have slowed the pace of rebuilding in North Carolina. Added competition for resources from the Los Angeles fires could extend recovery past the end of the decade.

“I definitely expect some kind of strain—definitely on materials,” Judd said. “This is going to put large demand [on the market for materials] and the main focus is going to be Los Angeles.”

California lawmakers are now trying to remove construction obstacles to be ready to host the World Cup in 2026 and Summer Olympics in 2028. Soni thinks that if lawmakers ease home-building permitting requirements, more contractors will make use of the window of deregulation, which will “intensely compound the labor shortage.”