But first to say thanks to our political leaders for being up to this Herculean task, which won’t let up anytime soon. And to the armies of people who continue to risk life and health, evacuating the stranded, keeping the peace as best they can, providing shelter, food and water, restoring transit and so much more. And to the record number of volunteers, including some marathon runners who used their training to run up and down stairs to give aid to the homebound.

Bravo to those who struggled for hours to get to nonessential work, such as offering to help out in unscathed apartment houses like mine. You provided assurance to the anxious and alone, and got more residents interacting. That relates to a maxim found in the East Sixties Neighborhood Association Fall Bulletin: “When strangers start acting like neighbors … communities are reinvigorated.”

They’re safer and healthier, and civic and faith groups should make “good neighborliness” a primary long-term goal.

But now priority attention must be paid to the countless thousands of victims of this unbelievably widespread and destructive natural disaster and those also threatened by pathological human nature, which terrifies and loots even in low-crime-area buildings and shops. In times of disaster, such dastardly deeds should be considered acts of treason.

Although protecting public safety is government’s first duty, was the hurricane-spawned lawlessness assailed in the last days of the election campaigns? There’s no greater good than making peace on the home front a bipartisan priority with election winners and losers working together. Everyone wins if they do.

And let’s revive faith group protests, like Monsignor Harry Byrne did in high-crime times against the violence that threatened his own congregation; we can at the very least revive his “First Civil Liberty” essay protesting the widespread threat of crime.

The standing-room-only crowds in places of worship seen after 9/11 did not reappear this time, although some regulars were doing recovery work at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church last Sunday. Faith groups help, in general, far more than most people who walked right by the church are aware. I went needing comfort and strength—and yes, giving thanks for being spared.

And I was righteously angry to learn later that nearby Central Park was “awash with tens of thousands of runners from all over the world running around the loop and marathon levels of spectators too.” Again, those who joined the recovery effort are the winners.

Ah, and bless the countless who share their homes with the new homeless. Long overdue in the myriad style, home and food sections and programs, not to mention our formal education system, are lessons in communication skills to help “the getting along”—in general. Hallmark Channel dropped reruns of The Waltons, about the only TV fare role-modeling such behavior, and where people took helping their neighbors for granted.

Related is the Museum of Natural History’s exhibit of how New Yorkers coped in World War II. If ours was called “the greatest generation,” it’s due to a Waltons-type ethos then found in ethnic and faith groups nationwide—not to mention movie and radio fare. And, if ever something needs reviving, it’s that in our primary educators—TV and music and now cyberspace.

But now the most immediate and ultimate need is helping storm-decimated communities and individuals survive and revive—it can be done if enough of us try. Keep trying as never before.

The headquarters of Nazareth Housing, at 206 E. Fourth St., narrowly avoided major damage. Michael Callaghan, executive director of the nonprofit group that works on housing rights and homelessness prevention, said that now they’re frenetically coordinating donated supplies and volunteers.

“I think the biggest problem is heat,” said Callaghan. “There is still public housing that doesn’t have electricity and heat. They’re not letting people go in and see how the residents are because they don’t want to be sued.”

He said that volunteers have been routing incoming supplies to some of the hardest-hit areas of the outer boroughs, like the Rockaways in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn, but they’re also still concerned about local downtown residents.

At the Hester Street offices of CAAAV, a pan-Asian community-based organization, executive director Helena Wong said that their role in helping has evolved day to day since Sandy struck.

“Every day has been a little bit different, we started off just providing a way for people to charge their phones and handing out what donations were coming in,” Wong said. “When FEMA came, the next day we started to go into buildings and prioritize the seniors and folks who have trouble getting around.”

Wong said that they’re now using their offices primarily as a donation drop-off center while trying to work with local residents who haven’t been able to get in touch with their landlords in order to get their boilers switched on.

Some organizations have had to overcome their own major hurdles in order to help. At GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), a neighborhood housing and preservation organization, their office at 171 Ave. B was in evacuation Zone A and is still without functioning phone lines or heat.

Damaris Reyes, the executive director, said that she and most of her staff also live in the flood zone, but that they still “managed to coordinate a massive relief effort with approximately 3,000 volunteers and thousands of donations.”

This week, staffers corralled volunteers to bring food, water, flashlights, batteries and information to seniors and disabled people who were trapped on high floors of buildings without power.

“About 50 percent of the residents don’t have heat and hot water, about 20 buildings still don’t have electricity, and most folks don’t have working phone lines,” Reyes said.

At the Bowery Mission, their shelter has been operating at over three times its normal capacity, housing over 150 people, and they kept hot meals coming all through the power outage with a donated generator and a mass of extension cords.

“We were the only lights on the Bowery for a few nights there,” said James Winans, the director of development.

They’ve received an outpouring of support and have been also operating a mobile kitchen on Avenue D between Fourth and Fifth streets, giving out hot meals. Winans said that while they’re focusing on how to help Sandy victims in the immediate future, he’s also concerned about facing the holiday season with depleted resources.

“This is a critical time of year for us any year, because we always do a significant weeklong outreach during the week of Thanksgiving and typically serve about 5,000 people,” Winans said.

He’s confident, though, that downtown residents will step up to fill in the gaps in resources. Helena Wong said that she saw firsthand how important it is to have local, tapped-in neighbors helping after a disaster, because they can often get straight to work, where larger organizations are more cumbersome.

“The Red Cross, the agency that is most known for disaster relief, was coming to us to know what to do,” Wong said. “Local organizations really know the community and should be supported to do the work that we do best.”