It's easy for Jai Eugene to be strong on the football field. It's not as easy off the field when his hometown has been devastated.

The cornerback from Destrehan, La., was forced to evacuate to Houston late last month in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Destrehan is about 23 miles west of New Orleans.

Eugene stayed in Houston for five days before his family went back home. Eugene said he returned to total destruction.

"There was a lot of water," he said. "Trees were all over the place, power lines were down and it was dark. There were no lights on anywhere. We had to put our bright lights on to drive."

Eugene said a tree fell on his house causing major damage and that his family has been without jobs since they returned.

Eugene said he has helped cut down trees and done work in his neighborhood. It has been difficult to just look at the damage.

"It's been a disaster," he said. "I've been watching the TV a lot and every time I watch TV I see those dead bodies in the water. People are crying and sitting outside their houses. I start crying because it's just miserable.

"Now I can't watch TV. I just turn the TV off. Every time I see it, people start talking about it and I just can't take it anymore."

Eugene said the effects of Hurricane Katrina have given him a new perspective.

"It makes me get stronger," he said. "That's what it's going to take. I try to talk to people and build other people's confidence up, like people that lost homes.

"I have a lot of friends that lived in the New Orleans area. So I try to talk to them if I could on their cell phones to try to bring their hopes and their feelings up."

Eugene said safety has been a concern. He said many homes near his were broken into but that his was not.

Eugene's football team played its first game of the season last Sunday after only one practice. Eugene said while he stayed in Houston he was unsure of whether his high school team would play football this fall.

"I couldn't get in touch with my coach," he said. "I was trying to talk to him and see if we were still going to have a season. If we didn't have a season, automatically my mom was going to stay in Houston and start from scratch in Houston."

Eugene said he has still been able to focus on narrowing a list of college choices. The 6-foot-1, 180-pounder said he is down to six schools: Miami, Florida, Tennessee, Southern California, Michigan and LSU. He said he will only take unofficial visits to LSU and use his five official visits on the remaining schools.

Eugene is thankful of the national support he has seen for Hurricane Katrina victims. Eugene stressed that any help can make a difference.

"People giving to the Red Cross, that is wonderful," he said. "People down here need help. We don't know how long until people can come back to New Orleans. I know it's going to be a while.

"They still have bodies in New Orleans. The water is still high. Anything they can do that can help us, we appreciate it."

Eugene said he will be a guest on "Quite Frankly" with Steven A. Smith on ESPN2 on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. He said he will be joined by members of the New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bulls guard Chris Duhon, a Louisiana native, to discuss Katrina's aftermath.