GHOULS: Devastated homeowners in Breezy Point (above) and other Rockaway neighborhoods are seeing heartless thieves pick through the rubble. (AP)
The Rockaways are dealing with still another plague.
After living through floods and fires, the community now finds itself infested with ghouls who claw their way through damaged homes and walk off with scrap metal — from copper wires to whole boilers, sources told The Post.
The vultures, who began their looting spree as floodwaters receded, also haul away slats made of exotic Brazilian wood broken off from the boardwalk.
“The night after the storm, I saw dozens of vans and trucks pull up and these scavengers were stealing the Brazilian wood, railings for scrap metal, anything they could get their grubby little hands on,” said a resident who asked not to be identified by name.
“People’s homes were underwater, and these scumbags were stealing all this stuff.
“People were coming from around the country to help us out, and these animals were coming from near and far to profit from our loss.”
In Breezy Point, where 100 houses burned, the looters picked through charred rubble to collect appliances, pipes and wires.
One Rockaways scrap yard purchases aluminum for as much as $1.32 a pound, and copper fetches about $3.22.
A Brooklyn lumber yard is now selling pieces of the boardwalk. A city block’s worth gets a crook as much as $25,000.
The ruined boardwalk also supplied miles of aluminum railing to the thieves.
“I’m not surprised. People are horrible,” said Anna Wolfe, 42, who’s been living on the peninsula for a decade.
“We’ve had people coming from out of town and taking things from the supply tents.”
The NYPD has been cracking down on the thieves, stopping drivers of rented box trucks with out-of-state-plates suspected of carrying stolen cargo.
Police have arrested as many as 10 people, who end up getting wrist-slaps. Most suspected thieves have plea-bargained to lesser charges and gotten conditional discharges.
Another resident who asked not be identified by name said, “I saw one guy run away from the cops. It was a guy I’d seen a day before, wearing a fluorescent vest and driving a white truck.
“He knew what he was doing. He wasn’t down here to volunteer. He wanted to blend in.’’
Ironically, a few days earlier, the looter had gotten stuck in the sand. Not realizing what he was up to, “People came out to help yank him out,’’ the resident said.