Hurricane Sandy brought out the worst yesterday in some sleazy New Yorkers, who looted stores and homes across the city.
Some posed as Con Ed workers to dupe their victims.
Police arrested more than a dozen looters in the Rockaways and Coney Island, which had been evacuated, and stood guard outside ravaged stores at the South Street Seaport.
“This morning when they told us the water receded, I walked back to the house to feed [my pets],” said Eric Martine, 33, a cabby who lives in Brooklyn’s Gerritsen Beach. “Guys were looting, pretending they were Con Ed and holding people up. It was sick.”
Residents said police warned them to beware of crooks pretending to be utility workers.
Cops fanned out yesterday to deal with looters around the city.
“We will not tolerate these scumbags looting. We will arrest them on sight,” said a police source.
The storm knocked out the plate-glass windows of several Seaport stores, and piggish punks took full advantage of the unguarded merchandise.
“I saw two people walking by the Ann Taylor store and reach in and take some shirts that were just laying right there by the mannequin,” said one man. “It’s really messed up, man. They’re really taking advantage.”
Looters also grabbed gadgets from a nearby Brookstone before cops arrived to stand guard.
In the Rockaways, lowlifes were sneaking into clothing stores and cleaning out pizzerias.
Two men and a woman were arrested for robbing a BP gas station on Beach Channel Drive, three men and one woman were cuffed for pillaging a Radio Shack on Beach 88th Street, and two people were arrested for raiding a clothing store near Beach 86th Street, cops said.
Stores were emptied along a two-block stretch of Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island. Seven people were busted.
“Almost everything is gone,” said store owner Mirza Baig. “We want to reopen but we don’t know how.”
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese, Kevin Sheehan and Kieran Crowley
