Elevations Credit Union President/CEO Gerry Agnes spottedpartially blue skies Monday morning, a much welcome sight afterBoulder, Colo., and surrounding communities were devastated by epic flooding triggered by seven straight days ofunrelenting rain turning rivers into raging torrents, damaging ordestroying thousands of homes, ruining dozens of roads and bridges,and claiming the lives of eight people.

Fortunately, none of the CEOs at Elevations CU, Premier MemberFCU and Boulder Valley CU reported any damages to their collective26 branches that serve more than 162,000 members throughout theBoulder area.

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But some credit union employees at Elevations CU were not solucky.

“Where the pain and heartache is at is really with ourstaff and members,” said Agnes. “One of our branch managers saidhis home is under seven to eight feet of water and we are hearingmore of that.”

Agnes spent the day traveling to the credit union's 10 branchesthat serve Boulder, Westminster, Lafayette, Longmont and Loveland. The branches were closed Thursday morning, all day Friday andreopened Saturday.

“From what I have learned there are about 5% percent of our(employees') homes that have been submerged (or had) some form ofserious water damage. Many of them are unable even to have accessto their homes,” Agnes said.

The $1.3 billion Boulder-based credit union has about 320employees.

Elevations CU has been assisting employees with findingtemporary housing. The credit union also is assessing how theflood has affected more than 100,000 of its members and suspectssome of them were hit hard. According to initial estimates reportedin local and national media, about 1,500 homes were destroyed and17,500 were damaged by the flooding.

Over the weekend the credit launched a fundraising initiative toraise $200,000 in emergency funds to help flood victims. If$100,000 in donations are raised, Elevations CU will match it, saidAgnes.

In 2010, the credit union raised more than $96,000 to aidvictims of the Four Mile Canyon Fire that destroyed 168 homes andscorched 6,200 acres in the Rocky Mountain National Forest just afew miles west of Boulder, according to the U.S. ForestService.

At the $300 million Boulder Valley Credit Union only one employee had basementdamage, one employee had his apartment damaged, and a thirdemployee didn't have access to his home because it's in anevacuation zone. It's believed, however, that the employee's homewasn't damaged, said Boulder Valley CU President/CEO RickAllen.

“Our employees were pretty lucky,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, the credit union closed all five of itsbranches but reopened three of them on Friday. All of them wereoperating Monday.

“There is an access issue with the Estes Park branch,”said Allen. “There is only one alternate route (to the branch) andit's pretty lengthy.”

In addition to the many roads that have been ruined by theflood, state transportation officials said up to 50 highway bridgeshave been destroyed or seriously damaged, according to nationalmedia reports.

Carlos Pacheco, president/CEO of the $445 million PremierMembers Federal Credit Union, said about 10 employees wereevacuated but none of their homes had been destroyed by the flood.

However, one employee cannot access his home because of roaddamage. Another employee is waiting to hear when he can return homein a previously evacuated area but doesn't know if there has beendamage to his home, Pacheco said.

The credit union was forced to closed six of its 11 branches onThursday, but three were reopened on Friday morning. All brancheswere up and running on Monday.

“Operations are getting back to normal. Schools are backup and running here. The community is getting back to normal,” saidPacheco.

Pacheco considers his credit union lucky, particularly becauseone of its Boulder branches was just 15 to 20 blocks away fromwhere a nearby river caused massive flooding.