(
)
A pregnant Hurricane Sandy victim was booted from her hotel room yesterday and forced to hunt for a place to stay because FEMA dropped the ball on her reservation.
Keri Christian, 27, was living at Brooklyn’s Nu Hotel with her daughter, Serafina, 2, after the storm destroyed their Staten Island home.
Now the eight-months-pregnant mom is couch surfing at an acquaintance’s home in Bay Ridge until she finds a new place.
Her husband, Anthony Marotto, 41, has been in Staten Island, trying to raise their charred and flooded home from the ashes.
“I feel like a homeless person . . . like a street rat,” said Christian, who’s expecting a boy in January. “It’s aggravating and physically demanding. I’m really pissed.”
She says FEMA approved her application for an extended stay until Dec. 14. But on Thursday, the hotel notified Christian her room was booked to someone else — and said FEMA never notified them of changes to her reservation.
Christian was distraught as she hauled suitcases, strollers and trash bags of clothes from the hotel yesterday with her child in tow.
The general manager at the chic Nu Hotel, where rooms start at about $200, declined to comment on Christian’s situation.
“We’re doing everything we can for as many people as possible,” said Javier Egipciaco, 36, adding that the hotel is accommodating dozens of Sandy victims and that rooms are based on availability.
Friends of the displaced mama griped that housing priority should be given to pregnant and disabled people. “It’s wrong,” said Tyrone Jackson, 40, who helped her move out of the hotel. “They should go on a special list.”
Christian and her husband moved into their New Dorp Beach home three months before Sandy flooded the first floor. Last week, a storm-damaged chimney caused the house to burn down.
As the pregnant mom struggles to find shelter, scores of hotel rooms reserved for hurricane victims — paid for with nearly $1 million in taxpayer money — have been vacant for weeks.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week 120 rooms at the Milford Plaza Hotel in Midtown haven’t been used since mid-November.
“I just can’t fathom this,” said Marotto, who burned his hands and back rescuing neighbors during the storm. “I’m doing everything I can to clean up my house. I’ve put myself in harm’s way, and FEMA can’t even let my wife and daughter stay in a hotel.”
Marotto said he confronted agency workers, who claimed their fax machine wasn’t working and they couldn’t send paperwork to the hotel.
An agency spokesman wouldn’t comment, saying, “Privacy is first and foremost with FEMA, and therefore we cannot and will not ever discuss individual situations.”
Christian has waited in FEMA lines for hours since the storm. She’d moved in and out of friends’ homes until finally settling in the Nu Hotel.
The constant moving has been so painful that she even checked into an emergency room because FEMA lines were too excruciating.
“I felt so much pain — and now we’re going through it all over again,” she said.