Life jackets would have saved her kids, one of the survivors of the tragic Missouri “duck boat” disaster said Saturday.

“I felt like if I was able to get a life jacket, I could have saved my babies,” a teary Tia Coleman said at a news conference. “They could have floated up to the top and someone [could have] grabbed them. And I wasn’t able to do that.”

Coleman’s husband, three young kids and five other family members were among 17 people killed this past Thursday when the sightseeing vessel they were riding in capsized on a lake in Branson, Mo., as a furious storm swept in.

The captain of the amphibious vessel, a tour vehicle that can travel on both land and water, explained that the life jackets were stored above them and that there were three different sizes, Coleman recalled.

“ ‘You don’t need them, so no need to worry,’ ” the skipper told his passengers, according to Coleman. “So we didn’t grab them.”

Tears fell as she talked about her husband, Glenn, whom she described as “so loving,” and kids Reece, 9; Evan, 7; and Arya, 1.

A question from a reporter asking if Coleman was ready to return home gave her pause.

“I’ve had a home. It’s always been filled with little feet and laughter,” she said. I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

When asked whether she was happy to have survived, a distraught Coleman replied, “I don’t know yet.”

The skies were clear Thursday as the family headed out for the 6:30 p.m. tour, but fierce winds quickly whipped up the water.

“I had my son right next to me, but when the water filled up the boat, I could no longer see,” Coleman recalled.

The last words she remembers hearing just as a huge wave hit the duck boat were, “Grab the baby!”

She struggled to reach the surface and the water got colder the more she flailed, Coleman recalled. She and her nephew were the only two members of her family to survive the tragedy.

“I don’t know if somebody pushed me, but I hit my head,” she explained. “I don’t know how I got out. I couldn’t see anything.”

The devout Coleman began to give up — but then she began to float.

“I thought, ‘There’s no use in keeping me here,’ ” she said. “And I started floating, and as I started floating I felt the temperature change.

“I believe I survived by God.”

Screaming as she neared the surface, Coleman swallowed “tons of water,” she remembered.

When she spotted a nearby boat, with people jumping into the water and throwing out life rafts, she swam toward them.

“Somehow, I managed to get to the boat,” Coleman said. “They were beautiful people, angels, I don’t know who they were. They pulled me up into the boat . . . I didn’t see any of my family.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident, asking for those with photos or videos of the vessel as it sank to come forward.

Coleman declined to give details about her nephew, saying, “I want to keep him protected.

“He’s a very strong young man … He is going through a lot right now,” she said.

“I’ve never had to recover from something like this,” she added, asking for prayers. “I don’t know if there is a recovery from something like this.”

With Post wires