FRISCO, Texans -- For two days now, Houston Texans players and coaches have been watching the coverage of Hurricane Harvey on TV and hearing from friends and family back home dealing with the storm.

There are players who have wives and young kids at home, players who are dealing with flooding, and coaches whose houses and apartments have become evacuation zones. And they're dealing with it from four hours away.

"It's like a punch in the gut," veteran cornerback Johnathan Joseph said. "You want to be back there for your city [and] your family."

"It's just been a long week altogether, flying in, coming from New Orleans, straight from that game, thinking that we're going to have a chance to fly home and don't fly home. Then it kind of escalated. Each and every day you wake up, you hear more and more things going on."

Many players said they've been communicating with their families back home as much as they can between their football responsibilities. Quarterback Tom Savage said he has been receiving photos of his 7-month-old daughter, Summer, and using FaceTime with her "every break I get." Savage, who has seen Summer for only a few days between the week away in New Orleans and now Dallas and the three-plus weeks the team spent in West Virginia for training camp, said this time away from his family has been tough.

"Here you kind of feel a little handcuffed," Savage said. "You can't do anything. As a father, you want to be there and you want to be there to support her and protect her. That's the hardest thing for all the guys. I can speak for them. They all want to be there. We're the fathers. We want to be out there."

Added defensive end J.J. Watt: "It's very difficult to watch your family, your friends, your city go through a time like this and not be there to help, not be there to go through it with them, not be there to experience it."

Texans long snapper Jon Weeks has his wife, Amanda, and 8-month-old daughter, Parker, at home. He said his family has been lucky to avoid the flooding so far and he, like many of his teammates, have been leaning on his wife while he cannot be in Houston.

"This is a very tough situation to be in being away from my wife and newborn. But my wife's a tough SOB and she's telling me to relax and calm down and I'm keeping in touch with her as much as I can," Weeks said. "I think every guy here would talk about how strong their wives are and how they're kind of the backbone for all of us.

"But we understand how amazing our city is and we know that if something bad is to happen, not only will our teammate's families try to reach out and help each other, but the city of Houston will come to their aid if they need it. So again, we're all just taking it step-by-step and doing what we can."

In the midst of dealing with everything that is happening back home, the team has also been trying to prepare for the start of the regular season. The Texans will practice twice this week in Frisco before Thursday's game at AT&T Stadium. The game had been scheduled to be played in Houston but on Monday it was announced the game would be relocated "due to public safety concerns resulting from the ongoing weather emergency related to Hurricane Harvey."

Savage said Texans head coach Bill O'Brien has been "tremendous" with the way he has handled what is happen with his team right now.

"It's really tough spot to be as a coach because so many guys want to be with their families and stuff," Savage said. "At the same time, it is what it is. We have a game coming up. It's a divisional opponent and we have to really stay focused on Jacksonville and obviously Dallas coming up.

"I can only imagine how hard it is for him to be able to separate that. At the end of the day, family is family and I know a lot of us want to be there for him."