Many of us knew people in that Connecticut community. One drove past the school about the time it was happening. From her vantage, all seemed serene. Returning home, passing again, knowing nothing, it was sirens, speeding police cars, traffic, commotion, helicopters overhead.

The principal, who was killed, shared my dog breeder.

A lady I know well, transporting a weakened outpatient to the local hospital for an expected blood transfusion, was refused. Medical authorities instantly reserved all practitioners, rooms and facilities for the anticipated wounded. They hadn’t yet known there were so few wounded — only dead.

The whole world feels the pain. Jamie Foxx had a birthday party, 14 people, at La Promenade on 23rd Street, complete with his Santa Claus hat and carrot cake. But before Tobey Maguire and Leo DiCaprio sang Happy Birthday, he requested a moment of silence to remember the pain in Connecticut.

HOLLYWOOD’s hills are alive with the sound of Oscar parties. Peter Cincotti was flown to Spago. Universal threw a jazzy “Les Miz” rock ’n’ roller gala. Matt Damon hosted lunch for 100 at the Bel Air. Ang Lee of “The Life of Pi” celebrated the life of a maybe Academy Award winner at Sunset Tower. Clooney had cocktails yesterday for Ben Affleck. Saturday night Jodie Foster put on a holiday party apropos of nothing.

MIAMI’s Stylecaster gave its own soiree at the Gale. I don’t know why. Nate Berkus came to support his baby sister. I don’t know why for that, either . . . Public relations lady Peggy Siegal suffering a pain in her neck. No comment about Peggy being a pain in the neck . . . At Da Tommaso, Michael Learned of off-B’way’s “The Outgoing Tide” said her late father was in the CIA.

ABOUT “The Impossible,” a true story of survival in the 2004 tsunami that decimated Southeast Asia, Naomi Watts said:

“I play the mother of three children. We shot in a tank. It was difficult. I had security and felt safe, but this most difficult thing I ever did was physically demanding. You rehearsed . . . OK, so now comes this wave. It’s unsettling . . . then another wave . . . then water was added . . . it was hard but done very believably.

“When I was underwater, I had to remain in the tank in that chair that spun around. It suddenly malfunctioned and stopped spinning. I got a little hurt when I couldn’t get out of the chair. The water was warm, but there was a certain level of panic and fear.

“Our art director created a huge area of devastation. We studied research people and designs, drawings, actual pictures and news videos. A great deal of accuracy went into this, and we were respectful of people living there.

“We filmed in the very reconstructed hotel, the exact site, where this actual family had been. They came to visit us. I met my actual counterpart and stood in the very space she was when the tsunami struck. Our story follows this family.”

Naomi and Liev Schreiber’s two sons, Samuel and Alexander, were with them. Says Liev: “Still now, twice a month, they beg to return to what they called Hermit Crab City — because those hermit crabs were crawling on the beach. I very much want to go back.”

Having never been there before, co-star Ewan McGregor is another who hopes to return. “It was surreal. Seeing garbage, debris, a police boat 1/4 mile inland. I made friends with a bar owner there who’d lost his entire family in the tsunami. It’s a testament to the Asian spirit.”

One personal P.S.: Two cherished age-20ish daughters of my friends in Johannesburg had begged to be allowed to go to Phuket — alone — for a first-ever Christmas holiday away from home. Their parents refused. They pleaded. Permission was finally given.

When horror struck, they sought refuge, clinging to each other, behind a slammed-shut bathroom door. Water crashed through their flimsy beachfront facility, and one was swept away. Another subsequently sustained more than a dozen surgeries.

I know Thailand’s Queen Sirikit for decades. I’ve repeatedly been with Her Majesty in Bangkok, her upcountry Hua Hin palace and New York. After my friend’s child was lost, I went to Thailand. Her Majesty, who’d lost a grandson in the experience, assigned me an Army general and Air Force plane to try to locate her. Involved in the rescue, Israelis with disaster expertise had photographed and documented every recovered body part. Her remains were ID’d by a tattoo.

NOTE to Bloomberg: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at Carnegie Club cigar lounge puffing away with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett . . . Note from Vivienne Westwood: “I design punk because I’m upset with what’s happening in the world.” So global tragedy inspired orange with pink fringe? . . . South Korea’s music Gangnam hotshot? Did you know “gangnam” is a district “south of Seoul’s river”? It means “nouveau riche.” Like Left Bank or Greenwich Village-ish. Or Vivienne Westwoody.

COMING commanders-in-choice: Clinton, Cuomo, Christie.

Only in the New York area, kids, only in the New York area.