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Breezy Point residents pledged to rebuild their community yesterday, a day after it was ravaged by an inferno.
Their spirit of hope was buoyed by an American flag that now flies over the neighborhood. It was found under rubble by a teenage girl.
“We were all in shock. How could that survive? When I saw it, I knew that everyone would be able to get through this and rebuild,” 16-year-old Jacqueline Lacovara told the Post.
Lacovara, her family and neighbor Shamus Barnes hung the flag on the only thing left of Barnes’ home — the metal frame from his awning.
“It was a little scarred, but otherwise untouched and unburned,” Barnes said. “We put the flag up to bring a little hope.”
The homes lost by Barnes and Lacovara — like those of many of their neighbors — had been in their families for 40-plus years.
Many returned yesterday to view their charred possessions.
“Our community is so close-knit,” said Linda Strong, 59, who has lived in her Ocean Avenue house for 37 years. She vowed, “We’ll all be a family again.”
Marie Lopresti. a 72-year-old widow, stared at her home of 34 years and said, “It can be rebuilt. It’s what we had inside — all our clothes, my husband’s flag, all our memories.
“It meant nothing when I had it, but now it means everything.”
“We’re going to rebuild,” said Lucille Dwyer, 64, who lived in her house for 23 years with her husband and son, a cop.
“You can’t replace everything — all the sentimental things. I had photos of my son when he was a baby. I had my mother’s dining-room set that was 70 years old.”
The blaze, whipped by winds generated by Hurricane Sandy, destroyed 111 houses and damaged scores more.
Frustrated volunteer firefighters saw the blaze start at around 8:15 p.m. Monday, but had no way of getting there because flooding had turned the streets into rivers.
“We could see the glow of the fire,” said volunteer Michael Scotko, 23. “It was just hard knowing there was a fire but there being no way you could get there.”
The station itself was flooded, so volunteer smoke-eaters patrolled the streets in rescue boats and kayaks to save residents who had defied evacuation orders and stayed with their homes.
The FDNY got the call nearly three hours later, and arrived with trucks to douse the flames — pumping the floodwaters straight onto the fires.
Tricia Rojas, 40, lived on Fulton Street for seven years with son Anthony, 7, and daughter Justina, 20, and her husband, a Port Authority cop.
Yesterday she picked up her wedding bands that she had taken off the day of the fire while she was cooking up food to get her family through the storm.
They fled their house when the water started to rise.
“We just panicked. I wanted us all to stay together when we went to the neighbor’s. Thank God we did,” she said.
They fled to her mother’s house, and watched their house burn from the attic window. Then that house caught ablaze.
“It was an inferno. We were watching the fire from the window. The wind started to turn and that’s when we ran out of the house in chest-deep water and went to a church. I was carrying my son on my back.”
“This is my house,” she said. “I loved it — I loved my house.”
Gov. Cuomo surveyed the scene yesterday and said that Breezy Point would rise again.
“We’re not just going to rebuild this community — we’re going to build it up better than ever before. As dark and gloomy as it looks right now, we invite you all back,” said Cuomo. “Come back in about a year and you’re going to see a better community than was here in the first place.”