Sandy was raging around him as Michael Delacruz left a stalled cab on West Street clutching his dog, Pyapya.
A nonswimmer, he was soon up to his neck in floodwater — and was sure he was going to die.
“I thought if I was going to drown, at least he should live,’’ the 5-foot-5 reinsurance underwriter said of the 14-year-old whippet, a cancer-survivor. “He’s like my son. He’s gone through so much in his life.’’
Delacruz , 48, yelled for help as he tried to walk and keep both of their heads above the water overflowing onto deserted Hubert Street at around 8 p.m. Oct. 29.
Miraculously, he got an answer — from Rajinda Pal, a Citi security staffer who spotted him as he stood at the Hubert Street loading bay at the north side of 390 Greenwich St., which houses the banking giant’s trading operations.
Pal signaled for him to keep going along Hubert Street. Delacruz soon found himself on a submerged elevated sidewalk, where the water level was lowered to his chest.
Balthazar Fortune, a Citi chief security supervisor, and Luis Guzman, a security officer, jumped in the water and pulled Delacruz and Pyapya to safety.
They and other Citi security staff gave them shelter and food.
“They just opened their hearts to me,’’ said Delacruz, who noted that the Samaritans, while not needing to swim, still had risked their lives for a stranger. “Those floodwaters, you never know what they’re capable of doing.’’
Delacruz’s nightmare began at around 6 p.m., when he decided he and Pyapya — whose name derives from the Hindi word pyaar, meaning love, needed to evacuate the West Street apartment he shares with his partner, Tim Perry, who was at work.
He grabbed a cab, and the driver headed north on West Street.
“I noticed water was seeping into the cab,’’ said Delacruz. As they reached the intersection of West and Hubert streets, the engine stalled, and the water was up to the cab windows. He told the driver he was getting out.
Delacruz, a 9/11 survivor who said he was walking down the stairs of Tower Two and had reached the 40th floor when the plane struck, said in this life-threatening crisis, he was thinking of Pyapya.
“I wanted him to live,’’ said Delacruz, who said the dog tried to swim, but he held him close because “I didn’t want the waters to sweep him away.’’
He thinks with sorrow of the victims claimed by Sandy, how “so many from New York and New Jersey lost their lives and homes, and I know I’m very lucky to have met these wonderful people from Citi.’’