The devastation of Hurricane Katrina hit too close to home for Tennessee tight end Chris Brown.

The sophomore from Destrehan, La., a suburb of New Orleans, spent some anxious moments around the TV and on the phone with relatives after the Category 4 hurricane hit the Gulf Coast on Monday.

"A tree fell on my house, a lot of shingles came off the roof, some siding came off the house and the fence around the yard is just gone," Brown said. "There's three feet of water standing on the street."

The good news was everyone close to Brown came away unscathed.

"My mom went to Mississippi to get away," he said. "She didn't know the storm was going to turn that way (east of New Orleans towards Mississippi).

"I'm just glad everybody's all right."

Brown's father is involved with the local parish government and decided to ride out the storm.

"All my people who are real close to me are fine, so I can't complain too much," he said. "It just stinks that my house is kind of messed up."

Senior linebacker Jason Mitchell (Abbeville, La.), sophomore defensive end Xavier Mitchell (Long Beach, Miss.) and freshman tailback Ja'Kouri Williams (Plaquemine, La.) also had family and friends in the path of the storm.

"My family is OK, but we just have to keep all those people in our prayers," Jason Mitchell said. "I'm still trying to call a lot of people because a lot of cell-phone companies were down (Monday) and you couldn't get in touch with people."

Williams still had not been able to contact his family as of Tuesday evening.