Hawaii safety Daniel Lewis Jr. is tough enough to recover from sports-hernia surgery in 10 days, tough enough to earn the Rainbow Warrior football team’s “Katoosh” award for his mouthpiece-loosening tackle on a Western Carolina ballcarrier last Saturday.

But Lewis gets smoke in his eyes when he watches videos of Hurricane Harvey’s destructive impact on Texas.

“My heart goes out to those kids,” Lewis said. “That’s who it’s going to be the hardest on. You just want to go back home and get your life back situated. (But for some) it never happens. … I completely sympathize with those people because I know what it’s like to have everything lost and to have to restart your life.”

It was in August 2005, and Lewis and his family were living in New Orleans when the warnings sounded as Hurricane Katrina approached.

They traveled to New Iberia, La., where they waited out what became a Category 3 storm.

A week later, a 10-year-old Lewis and his cousins returned to New Orleans to find … nothing.

“My area got 13 feet (of water), and my house was 5 feet off the ground,” Lewis said. “I went with my grandfather and five of my cousins to clean up everything, to see what we could get back. Everything was just gone in the house. We couldn’t retrieve anything at that point. We started cleaning up and started the rebuilding process.”

The city was a jolting reminder of Mother Nature’s fury.

“I was young at the time, and I didn’t know too much about the situation, but there was all the mold,” Lewis recalled. “We had to wear masks all throughout the city. We literally saw houses in different places that had been picked up by the water. It was crazy.”

Lewis experienced recurring dread initially when he learned Harvey had battered Houston, where relatives on his mother’s side live. “They got hit a little bit, but they’re all right,” Lewis said.

He said he was heartened by the national support for those affected by Harvey.

“I’m thankful for the effort and the aloha everybody has been showing nationwide,” Lewis said. “They have a lot of money raised for those people down in Texas. That’s a big help.”

Lewis also is trying to make an impact in Hawaii. Despite accepting a medical hardship for his abbreviated 2016 season, Lewis was named one of four co-captains in polling of the players. “I was in shock,” Lewis said. “I was very surprised and thankful the guys thought about me and had that respect for me.”

Lewis, a fourth-year junior, also has immersed himself into the community.

“I’ve lived all over (Oahu),” he said. “I’m trying to get all over the place, and experience and embrace this place. I have a lot of friends who (have) never been out to Hawaii, and I’m out here living here. I’m making the most of this, really experiencing and embracing this culture. I want to experience things not from a tourist’s point of view, but a local point of view.”