Hardened New Yorkers are ready to battle lowlife criminals to protect their homes and stores in storm-ravaged areas plagued by looting and break-ins.
In Coney Island, several residents were loading up their guns, sharpening their machetes and brandishing other deadly weapons.
Jacinto Gonzalez, 42, picked up a baseball bat and stood guard outside his two-story rowhouse on West 27th Street near Neptune Avenue with his family.
Another Coney Island resident, Roberto Aviles, brandishing a rusty 3-foot machete and warning he has a gun, who has lived in Coney Island since 1995 with his wife, says he’s ready to take on phony burglars posing as Con Ed workers.
“I’m prepared inside here,” the 76-year-old Aviles said, showing off his rusted, three-foot machete and warning he had a gun.
Chris Lane, a 50-year-old resident of the Coney Island Houses, put together a small arsenal with his double pump action gun.
Lane said he scared off a bunch of thugs skulking around the hallways of his building when the storm struck Monday night.
“They were roving in packs, not just one or two people. I had more than a little something, too,” Lane said, referring to his weapons. “I let it be known that my floor is off limits.”
A sign outside a home in Long Beach, LI, summed it all up for storm weary New Yorkers. It read, “Looters will be shot by local vet.”