He survived 9/11, fought in Iraq, and now guards killers at Sing Sing, but he’s never been more scared than when Sandy came to his Staten Island doorstep one month ago.
“I made it through 9/11 when the second tower fell. I was there for the Baghdad invasion. I never thought I was gonna die,” Pedro Correa said, until Oct. 29, when Sandy made landfall.
“That night, I thought I was gonna die.”
As the storm hit, he sent his wife and children, ages 2 and 6, inland to safely, but Correa stayed behind to protect the Kissam Avenue home he’d remodeled in Oakwood Beach.
Heavy winds blew off the roof, and soon, the entire structure started to collapse. Then the floodwaters came.
He called his wife and son to say a final goodbye, then with a broken rib swam to a neighbor’s house on Mill Road.
“How I survived that night — I go over it in my head a million times — I can’t understand it,” Correa told The Post, standing on the rubble that was his home.
A month later, Sandy has drained his wallet.
Correa estimates his house and possessions were worth about $600,000, but his insurance is capped at $250,000, and FEMA has offered only $2,800.
“I’m going to see a bankruptcy lawyer on Friday. I lost everything out here,” Correa said.
He rented an apartment nearby so his children can stay in school, and he’s looking to the government for help.
“I served my country. I served my state for a lot of years,” he said.
Along with Correa, hundreds of thousands of people are still reeling from Sandy’s aftermath one month later:
* LIPA reports 12,000 “customers” — which could be entire buildings — in Nassau, Suffolk and the Rockaways are without power. About 1,600 Con Ed customers on Staten Island and in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan need electricity.
* More than 234,000 New Yorkers have contacted FEMA for assistance, and more than $690 million has been approved.
* Nearly 57,000 survivors have stayed at various recovery centers in the affected areas, and 34 centers remain open.
* 9,323 homes have registered for NYC’s Rapid Repairs program — for heat, water and power — but to date, only 817 are in the process of being repaired, and just 38 home repairs have been completed.
* The city will offer a 90-day deferral of third-quarter property-tax bills for any unlivable home that has been red-tagged.
* Dozens of schools in the city and on Long Island are canceling winter-break vacation days to make up for missed classes.
* The R train won’t be running between Brooklyn and Manhattan for up to two more weeks. The A train is out south of Howard Beach for the next few months.