Friends of Rockaway Beach to rally this Sunday, at 1 p.m. on Beach 86th St., to get residents, beach-lovers and elected officials refocused on their “Demand the Sand” campaign.

Just hours after Superstorm Sandy devastated Rockaway Beach, someone angrily spray-painted a message on the wall of a battered handball court:

“John Cori warned you.”

Cori, who grew up down the street on Beach 92nd St., has spent the past few years advocating for beach replenishment, new jetties and other reforms to protect the dangerously eroded shoreline.

The 49-year-old contractor does not fancy himself a soothsayer.

“I was one of many people who were talking about this,” Cori said on Thursday while standing on the beach. “I was sad we were right.”

Cori and Eddy Pastore, who formed Friends of Rockaway Beach, are leading a rally and protest this Sunday, at 1 p.m. on Beach 86th St., to get residents, beach-lovers and elected officials refocused on their “Demand the Sand” campaign.

The group is calling on city, state and federal governments to finish funding a long-overdue U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study on beach erosion and find permanent solutions such as rock jetties, also known as groins.

“This is not about recreation,” said Pastore, 55. “It’s a matter of Rockaway’s survival.”

The popular boardwalk and its new food concessions drew more visitors than ever last summer, with some estimates topping 7 million.

Most of that boardwalk from Beach 91st to Beach 108th was ripped away by the storm, leaving just the concrete pillars behind.

Sand washed off the beach and onto streets, mixing with debris. The ocean raged into homes, taking cars and everything else in its path.

Without a boardwalk, there is little to protect hundreds of homes from the ocean.

City workers and contractors have been retrieving whatever sand they can find and creating a berm near the remnants of the boardwalk, said Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski.

“From the very beginning, the city reached out to the Department of Environmental Conservation and determined quickly which sand could go back,” she said.

Once the area is cleared of broken equipment and benches, additional sand will be deposited to create a protective barrier.

“We will be laying silt mesh on it so it doesn’t blow back into the neighborhood,” Lewandowski said.

She said they are also waiting for completion of the Army Corps’ reformulation study.

“We would love to see that finalized and come with a plan that allows us to better improve that shoreline,” she said.

The Army Corps is also investigating short-term efforts to protect the shoreline — including the addition of more sand — while the study continues.

“Right now, we are doing an assessment as to what it would take to restore the beach to pre-storm conditions,” said Chris Gardner, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. “It’s all subject to funding and a variety of things.”

Meanwhile, Cori and Pastore promised to keep the pressure on lawmakers and others to make sure work — which should have been done years ago, they say — gets completed along with the rebuilding.

“Elected officials kicked the can down the road for way too long,” Cori said, “and now the storm took away the road.”

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