Metro

Staten Island woman fighting FEMA for denture replacement after Hurricane Sandy

Getting help from the feds is like pulling teeth.

Staten Islander Maria McKenna lost not only her home to Hurricane Sandy but her dentures, too.

Now FEMA, which has promised to provide dental work to Sandy victims, won’t replace the upper and lower partials that floodwaters swept from under her sink, the mom of three told The Post.

“I have Crohn’s disease,” a bowel disorder, McKenna, 56, explained. “I have to eat solid foods, and you can’t eat solid foods without back teeth.”

The storm flooded her Oakwood Beach home, ripping her toilet from the floor and sending her, her daughter Michele and their two dogs onto a counter.

“The water was up around my nose,” she said.

The strain tore sutures McKenna had from breast-cancer surgery she underwent three weeks earlier.

“I literally had to push the refrigerator out of the way,” she said. “I broke open. I was bleeding in the water.”

For eight months, McKenna has been tangled in FEMA red tape — all to get a new set of teeth.

She and her two adult daughters got $8,000 from FEMA. And after months of wrangling, the agency promised $8,000 more for rent. But it hasn’t approved dental aid, she said.

McKenna has exchanged more than a dozen e-mails and letters with FEMA and calls every four days.

FEMA demanded a note from her dentist. She supplied it but was denied in letters, dated March 26 and April 25, citing “insufficient substantiation.”

A FEMA spokesman declined to comment.

“They’re driving me out of my mind,” McKenna said. “I’ve never felt so belittled and so poor.”