Some Bermuda companies have, for the most part, gone all out to help employees adversely affected by hurricane Fabian.

The most generous companies have been the Island's well heeled insurance companies like ACE limited and Renaissance Re.

Some employees at these companies found themselves staring an indefinite period of homelessness in the face only to land in luxury accommodations just hours later.

The Bank of Butterfield issued a statement saying they "recognised the need to be flexible for employees whose lives have been disrupted by the hurricane".

"We are making allowances for employees who require time off for emergency reasons related to the storm and for those who need additional time to travel to and from work," said the bank's president and CEO Alan Thompson.

The bank has also started a special loans program for hurricane relief.

Just one of the companies pulling out all the stops to ease the disruption to the lives of their employees, ACE set up two hotlines - one for general information and another for emergencies - once the storm had passed.

"Our building was fine over the storm so we never lost power although we took our systems down as a precautionary measure," said the company's communications Director Wendy Davis Johnson.

"But they were back up again Saturday evening so we were able to set up an information line and an emergency line and gave that to the broadcast stations."

The company's 300 employees were told that it was understandable if they did not return to work for a few days.

"What we told them was that our offices were open for business and fully functional but we wanted them to make sure they took care of them and their families first before they came back to work."

Cafeteria hours were extended, shower facilities opened up for staff and immediate family and the company flew in supplies like generators, jerry jugs, batteries and extension cords.

Some 16 children are using temporary facilities on Woodbourne Avenue which is being manned by a rotating roster of volunteers, until the schools are reopened.

And, the company reports that it had to relocate three employees and their families to alternative housing.

The company made available one of its own properties - normally set aside for executive housing for emergency housing needs, and two other properties were provided by other employees.

"Any employee who needs accommodation has been assisted and will be assisted. Clearly any employee who is in need will be helped by us," Ms Davis Johnson said.

"We made sure our executives were safe. Their homes were secured and those who were here were safe."

But the company has also been working closely with the Salvation Army to help with wider community needs and made an initial donation to cover costs.

Things were not so different at the smaller Ren Re. Chief administrative officer Peter Durhager who heads up the company's hurricane management team said Ren Re as prepared for Fabian as it could be.

"There's certain things that you can plan for. Basically what you do is you put a robust system in place and you execute depending on what the cards deal you," Mr. Durhager said.

"We started as early as last week. We do weather modelling for our business and we used those models for our own backyard. Not unlike a lot of organisations intellectual capital is fundamentally resident in our people so our people are our highest priority."

For those employees who were abroad in the days leading up to the hurricane, the company sent contractors out to their homes to make sure they were secure.

Like ACE, Ren Re, which has 75 employees in Bermuda, brought in emergency supplies on one of the company's planes, to ease post Fabian hardships.

And an extended family of seven is living in company owned homes.

"We are assisting two other families with either short term or potentially intermediate term needs - it largely depends on when people can get (roof) slate," he continued.

"We provide things like meals and hot showers, laundry - we brought someone in house to operate a laundry service so employees can focus on making their families as safe and as comfortable as they can be."

He said the company was particularly keen to help ease the pain of families with small children, and has even handed out mobile phones for those who need them.

Company president Bill Riker was off the Island when the storm hit but flew in with supplies at the earliest opportunity. "That's the kind of guy he is. His mind is on how do we clean up and how do we make things secure."

Mr. Durhager said he was impressed at the way Bermuda is bouncing back after a storm of such magnitude.

"Bermuda Inc. was open for business Monday morning," he said. "Any where else in the world a category three storm of this magnitude would have had far more of an impact. When you look at it in that context we have a lot to be thankful for."

He added that being without television for a week was " a good lesson for the kids too".