Thanksgiving break, usually a week when college students enjoy time with family and friends, was different this year for many Brandeis students from the Northeast. Many students from New York and New Jersey went home and found themselves dealing with the lasting damage from the storm Sandy.

Some students only noticed minimal damage in their hometowns. Scott Kluger ’15 said his family did get their power back, but there were still many large fallen trees around his hometown of Basking Ridge, N.J.

Nicole Cardona ’15 saw her hometown of Staten Island, N.Y., in worse condition.

In Staten Island, there’s still widespread damage. “My family’s home is okay, but other homes on our same street still have yellow tags on them, meaning it’s too dangerous to go inside them without supervision,” Cardona said.

“The place where I used to work has been destroyed and is now being used as a goods distribution center for the affected, instead. Another one of my favorite restaurants, two streets away from my house, is also destroyed. There’s one particular street close to me where there’s still debris and all the homes have red or yellow tags on them, which means it’s too dangerous to enter because of electrical problems or structural weaknesses. One house actually caught fire and blew up, so all you see of it now is blackened foundation,” she added.

Nearly 30 percent of Brandeis’ student body comes from either New York or New Jersey: the states hit hardest by the storm.

CNN reported that the storm caused over 7.5 million power outages throughout its two days of landfall. An estimated 40,000 people across the two states were left homeless.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Sandy as a hurricane. Before hitting shore, the storm was downgraded to a tropical cyclone.