Over the past few days, parts of the northeast United States have experienced damage like never before from Hurricane Sandy. Much of New York City is under water and cities along the coast are looking at weeks or months before things will be back to normal.

The UCF football team has a handful of players on its roster from the Empire State. Head coach George O'Leary is also a New York native. Throughout the past couple days, their thoughts and prayers have been with their family members and friends up north.

"My mom lost power and she was flooded quite a bit," senior H-back and Shoreham, N.Y. native Brendan Kelly said. "I'm on the north shore of Long Island, which got hit hard. But for the most part the storm has cleared out and now it's a lot of cleaning up.

"I stayed in touch with her as much as I could," Kelly continued. "It's scary. We're not used to hurricanes. I know Florida people are used to it, but we don't get that too often. It's scary stuff, especially being surrounded by water, too."

Fellow Knights Rob Calabrese, Troy Green, Latavius Murray, Jamie Boyle and Kevin Miller are from either New York or New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy has been the main topic of conversation among those Knights for the past couple of days.

"We were looking at photos and we're all very fortunate we're down here now and not around that," Kelly said.

Coach O'Leary has brothers and a sister in New York. UCF's head coach was able to talk to his sister about the storm. According to Coach O'Leary, the reports he received were not good.

"I think it's the worst they've had as far as level of water, but they'll work through it," O'Leary said. "They're resilient people up there and they'll get through it."