Episode 42: The Impact of Flooding, How to Manage the Risk and Supporting Schemes with Mary and Kelly

The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.

Matt Nally: On this week’s episode, we’re talking everything flooding, which is going to be a really interesting one for me, having been through the process. And on this week’s episode, we’ve got Mary from Flood Mary, and we’ve got Kelly, the Head of Communications and Stakeholder Relations at FloodRe. So thank you for both coming on.

Do you want to start by giving yourself a full, more interesting introduction than I’ve just given.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Thanks. I’m really pleased to be here, Matt. Thank you for inviting Mary and I. As you said I head up the comms function in Flood Re. I’ve been here for nearly four years now, which has gone really quickly, but my journey with flooding started when I worked for the Association of British Insurers back in the 2007 floods.

And I spent a lot of time up and down the country with householders, insurers and loss adjusters at the time. And it’s because of the huge disruption that was caused throughout the whole country in 2007 that Flood Re was then set up. And so Flood Re was set up to make the flood insurance part of a home insurance premium more affordable and available.

So that’s

Matt Nally: it. Awesome. And what about yourself, Mary?

Mary Long- Dhonau: I’ve been flooded on many occasions myself. In fact come 24 years ago right now, my house was in the same state as yours is now, Matt. It was all the plaster had been knocked off and the floors pulled up and the dryers and dehumidifiers were in there doing their job.

But when I was flooded, there was no help, no support, no advice available at all. And one thing that I did realize very quickly is that everybody’s got stuff going on in their lives. And then flooding can often break them and, just, and I know Kelly’s heard these examples before, but they’re fresh to you just in my near neighborhood.

I’ve just been diagnosed with a severely autistic son of three years old. And to put that into context, he’s now 27 and has the mental capacity of a small toddler. So that’s what we were dealing with. And we lost, we just converted his playroom and we lost all his toys, the floodwater. Next door was an agoraphobic and she had an open plan living room, kitchen, dining living room.

And she was flooded throughout with a very thick carpet of poo. All the way through, and she was forced out of her house and had a nervous breakdown. And further along the road was an elderly lady that had just come back from her husband’s funeral that day, and she’d had the sort of wake at home, had the photograph albums open, left them open on the coffee table, went to bed, and that night was flooded.

So three different people in the same street, now you can magnify that by the flood that Kelly was talking about when 55, 000 people were flooded. And so since that time, I’ve done my best to really get as much advice. So dump it basically on my Flood Mary website just so people if they are flooded can go onto it and find a recovery guide.

If they’re thinking about Build Back Better, there’s guides on there on, on all the products that are available and also a book that I’ve written which was supported by Flood Re and the Environment Agency, traveling around the country to talk to people who have made adaptations to their home to make them flood recoverable.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think you make a really good point there, Mary. I think when it comes to flooding it, it affects every part of your life. It’s not just having the right insurance in place to be able to dry out your house and get back in. It’s about everything that’s disrupted. And it’s probably one of the most traumatic experiences you can go through.

We know that there’s a real limit in rental properties at the moment. So if you have a whole village that’s flooded and people have to move out of their homes, they’re often moved an awful long way away from their schools, their works, their communities, their support systems, as well as having to deal with the normal things that life is throwing to the average person.

So being prepared for a flood is one of the, the top things if you’re in a flood risk area.

Mary Long- Dhonau: So one thing that I always say is that your home is your sanctuary. It’s somewhere that after a long day at work, you can shut the door and you feel safe and to have it violated, as by filthy stenching flood water it can break a person, really.

Not knowing, you don’t get given a handbook, hopefully if you go to my website we’ll give you a handbook, you just don’t know which way to turn. And as Kelly said, finding somewhere to live, again in 2007, many people lived in their caravans on their drives for two years. Two years!

It’s bad enough when you go for a week on holiday, you’re just about killing the rest of your family at the end of that week. But two years of it is just Awful.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: And the floods happened in July where the weather’s quite nice. But actually, by the time it got to December and people were trying to cook a Christmas dinner and live with their whole families in a small caravan, it’s just unthinkable really.

Matt Nally: Yeah, the novelty’s worn off completely by that point. I agree with what both of you have said. It’s yeah you start to see what people are going through. Cause you start hearing the stories of, what else they’re dealing with. We have the same thing, people with health issues nearby and, they just found out stuff like that.

But you’re right. The disruption actually moving can be quite hard, particularly if you’ve got pets. That was an interesting one. You’ve already got a shortage of rental properties. Suddenly everyone’s going for them. And then also you’ve got to try and find somewhere that’s also willing to take pets on top.

And that adds another layer of of interest. And there’s so many different. Things going on at that point, you’re trying to find somewhere to live. You’ve got insurance to deal with. Hopefully you’ve got, you had insurance yeah, lost assessors, lost adjusters, all these different people, different things they’re trying to do.

So yeah, so a lot to deal with, but I think across the episode, there’s probably three key things we’ll look at. One is what’s the actual current status of flood risk? And what are the realities around flood risk versus just risk map online. What are the realities of flood recovery?

Cause that’s a completely different to what you’d potentially see on the news on, obviously it’s a flash point in the news and it gets forgotten about. And then yeah, build back better and flood defense and how you actually protect yourself. Should we start with the current flood risk in the UK?

I know you mentioned 2007, obviously it was a massive one and we’re seeing, we had the stuff in September. There was another one recently where the camera was all back out for. Stuff going on. Yeah. How many properties are at risk and how much does it really tie into a flood risk map online that you see?

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think the real picture is really hard to see. But we know that from research that JBA Consulting have done, and also the Environment Agency have just revised their figures, that one in four households in the UK are now at risk of flooding. One in four. When you think about that’s a really high number and I just don’t think the average person really thinks about flood risk when they’re moving home.

In terms of flood maps, what’s really difficult now for us to be looking at is surface water flooding. And we’re getting more and more of that. A couple of years ago in, you saw in London where it came the rain came down really quickly. The drains couldn’t cope and you had lots and lots of properties flooded with surface water flooding.

And one of the big things that’s causing that is. that we’re paving over driveways, we’re putting ashtray turf down, we’re putting home offices in our gardens. The more green space that is taken away and concreted over, the higher that flood risk goes. The water has to go somewhere. We are an island full of rivers.

We have water everywhere and we have to live with that water. That water is, has to go somewhere and the weather’s getting wetter. So flood risk is one of the big risks at the moment to the UK. And it is only going to get worse, unfortunately.

Mary Long- Dhonau: I couldn’t agree more with Kelly that. that there were 4.

6 million people, according to the Environment Agency now, at risk of surface water flooding. And that’s where you haven’t got a stream, or a river, or the sea. That’s really just caused by too much rain. And due to climate change, clouds at the moment are between seven and eight percent heavier than they used to be.

And when they’re heavier, They’re moving slower. So we regularly see, and it angers me that we’re called, now calling it a month’s rain falling in a day, because that’s becoming too regular to call it a month’s rain falling in a day. But let’s go back to a month’s rain. falling in a matter of hours. So it hits all the sort of things that Kelly had described the concrete, the tarmac, the paved overdrives, and it hits the ground running.

The drains soon become overwhelmed. They’re woefully inadequate to deal with that amount of rain now. They were built, most of them were built before we got so much development. So they hit the ground running, and so they’re entering our homes. And people that are even people that live on hills.

can flood. I’ve been in many flooded properties in West Yorkshire, for instance, on steep hills that have been flooded. And that’s really overland runoff. And somebody told me that a skip was passed parked outside their house and a skip parked, dumped outside their house.

You can imagine people driving skips, but outside their house. And so the flood, the overland runoff. Due to the amount of rain was going down the hill, hit the skip, took a quick right hand turn through their front house and they were sat eating supper through their front door and out of their back door before they even knew what was happening and they were nowhere near a river and that kind of thing happens very regularly.

It happened to a near neighbor of mine. Again, a car was parked over the drain and the rain took a sharp right through a hedge and into a house. And I suddenly got her rapping on my door saying, thank God I live near flood Mary, come and help me. And that’s what was happening to her.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think what’s really important to mention here is as well as everything that Mary and I have just talked about, we’ve got a real shortage of homes.

And we know we need more homes built. The government has a very ambitious house building target of 1. 5 million new homes. And If those homes are built, even if those homes are built with flood resilience in mind, which one of the things that we’re really calling for the government to take into account, it’s the knock on effect.

You build a new estate where that Was soaking up water with green land that then might, and we’ve seen it time and time again, push down to a village that is never flooded before. So the rain goes elsewhere. The water will find a way and it has to go somewhere. So we’ve got a real challenge at the moment where we have a need for housing.

vicious house building targets. We’ve got climate change and we’ve got a huge need for extra flood defences as well as, and this is really important, the maintaining the flood defences that we already have in existence.

Mary Long- Dhonau: Yeah, and I can just add to that by saying that in 2010 we had something called the Floods and Water Management Act that came into law.

But Schedule 3, which basically insists that sustainable urban drainage is put into new developments and basically they mimic nature to make sure that new development doesn’t make flood risk worse elsewhere, has not been enacted yet. So it’s not happened yet. So we do get new developments where if you can imagine all the new houses with the runoff from the rain falling off their roofs going straight into the drainage system and they have to leave the development in two pipes, the rain and the foul.

But quite often a few hundred meters down the road they go into the combined sewer. And that combined sewer is becoming overloaded, hence more flooding. Oh God, we’re doomed, aren’t we?

Matt Nally: Hopefully we’ll come on to yeah, solutions later. Yeah, it’s funny you mentioned, not funny, but it ties in that you mentioned around surface water flooding being the highest risk because that’s the one my other half property was affected by.

And it, exactly the point you make around drives being concreted over. I think I read a sat online that said something like one in seven or one in nine. I was looking at it going, there’s way more than that near us. They’re turning from, gardens into driveways. And exactly that was, where does the water go?

It goes for us onto the road. And the issue with that was the drains weren’t maintained. So therefore the water, again, that couldn’t flow away. So I had to go to the lowest point. Which was a lot of the houses. I suppose with that, if you’re either a homeowner currently or you’re looking to buy somewhere or a surveyor trying to advise someone and you’re looking at these, I don’t know, surface water flood risk maps how can you tie that into other factors, like what other factors do you need to consider like overbuilding or drains maintenance and how do you find out about that to see What’s the reality of risk?

Because you might have low risk in terms of flood water, but actually if the drains aren’t maintained, the reality is it’s probably higher because it’s got nowhere to go. Is there a way at the moment of finding that out?

Mary Long- Dhonau: Oh, difficult question. Really difficult question. Yeah. Can I just answer, tell you one thing that.

When the 2007 floods, I know we harp onto that, but it was a huge issue. Many of the residents in Gloucester were saying the drains weren’t maintained, and had they been maintained, we wouldn’t have flooded. So they did a study after that, and it was proved that even if the drains, due to the sheer volume of rain falling, even if the drains had been cleared and running freely, those houses will have still flooded, only by a little bit less.

So a lot of people think that had the drains been maintained, we wouldn’t have flooded, but quite often that is not the case. There’s too much rain falling for those drains to absorb it anyway, and then compounded by the hard surfaces. So it’s not always the blocked drain. Sometimes it is, but not always.

Matt Nally: I suppose it’s easier to make a quick look. Yeah, and we see all the water around them, someone unblocks it and you go yeah. Yeah. But you’re right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s instantaneous volume.

Mary Long- Dhonau: Yeah, and also if you think as well, if you have a bath, is that, I don’t often do that, showers nowadays, but you have a bath and you pull the plug out, the water doesn’t go straight away, does it?

You don’t say a bath’s blocked, it goes slowly down the hole. And it’s the same with drains. If, when you’ve got an awful lot of water and you see that sort of puddles right across the road, and then you go back an hour later and it’s actually gone, Because it just, there’s a little, the drains are quite small.

Bearing in mind the amount of water, so always think of your bath plug. But certainly, maintenance of drains would help reduce flood risk, but it’s only part of reducing flood risk. But, with regard to your question, you can get, when you get sent by your house, you do get an environmental report.

within it and a lot of that covers your risk of flooding but also you can ask your local authority what the flood risk is and also a lot of people used to come and knock my door and say we’re thinking of buying the house next door what you know what’s the flood risk like and are the drains unblocked and then they cleaned regularly so really it’s local knowledge look up a local flood action group and contact them because they’re an invaluable font of knowledge.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I would agree with everything that Mary says, but you can find out your traditional flood risk through the Environment Agency’s website, and we definitely recommend that as well.

Mary Long- Dhonau: And if you’re at flood risk and buying the house, sign up for a flood warning.

Matt Nally: Yes yeah, it’s not a bad idea.

Actually, on that note, it’s an interesting one. We I say we my, my other house, she got a letter probably a year in advance of the floods. I can’t remember whether it was linked to a well known railway project or not, but because there’s drilling going on underneath the house. And it said that you’re no longer in a flood risk area.

But then from an insurance perspective, they were going, no, nothing’s changed on our side. And the flood risk maps hadn’t changed either. So I suppose there’s also, yeah, making sure you check various sources rather than just relying on one particular thing that comes through to make sure you’re weighing up all the different information, but it was an interesting letter that came out.

Mary Long- Dhonau: Local flood risk knowledge is. It’s really a powerful tool. Always ask locally. Definitely. I think as a surveyor, then obviously that’s one of the things you need to make sure when you’re looking at properties, you are aware of local knowledge, not just straying outside of your area of expertise when it comes to stuff like

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: that.

Matt Nally: I suppose then in terms of, yeah, let’s, I suppose some of the risk aspects around flooding. Should we talk about the realities of Flooding and flood recovery. I know one of the things we talked about before we started this was you see the news news reporters going and they say, these people are gonna be out of their homes for several weeks.

And I know from my own experience, it’s definitely longer. I suppose that comes maybe a bit later on in terms of drying and build backs. What are the stages when it comes to flood recovery? I can obviously touch on our experience as well, but obviously stage one is getting flooded. And that’s the annoying part.

What happens after that, I guess there’s the experience we have was once the drains were cleared, finally, in terms of the water had gone, we could then start pumping out to those drains. And luckily what was really nice is all of the community came together. People were in each other’s houses, scooping water out into gardens and pumping and, that was a really nice experience. And the next day, it obviously dies back down to normal. People can’t really help you anymore. And you’re left to deal with the aftermath. So what are the what are the sort of key stages do you think in your experience of the many years of looking at floods?

Mary Long- Dhonau: First of all, you’ve got to remember that each insurance company does things differently. And also we have to say that if it’s a surge event, and a surge event is lots and lots of properties. So the whole village is taken out or in fact, 2007, the whole country felt like it was taken out by flooding.

So things go at slower levels and so there’s no one answer to that. But generally speaking, it’s. You get you will inform your insurance company and they then you’ll be contacted by a loss adjuster who If you’re lucky, we’ll stay your loss adjuster for the entire duration. If there’s a big surge, you may find that loss adjusters are brought in from other areas.

And then you’ll, they will instruct a stabilizing country company to come and assess the damage. And they will pump out the water. They will take an inventory of absolutely everything that you’ve got. And also I always advise people to take photographs and the contents of your fridge and your freezer and everything so you’ve got that evidence.

And they will then deliver the dehumidifiers. They will clean it. They will sanitize it. And they will be the ones that keep monitoring whether it’s dry or not. Then after that, then once it’s dry, and also I have to say a caveat some companies say the property’s not dry, it’s not dry, but actually, originally it was never dry because it’s an old property.

So there’s a bit of arguing to do there that actually this property was never properly dry. And then you get the builders and the plumbers and depending on the level of damage and etc. So it’s the drying process, as Matt. is a really slow one. Again, you will find, and this causes angst amongst communities, you will find a newer house will dry quicker, and that people will say they’re back, why are we not?

But it really is, every house is bespoke to itself. And that, and also when you you add to that the different processes of insurance companies. So people do slow dry down dry at slower processes. So you’ve got to be aware of that. So you might find that often is the case that people are back to normal and you wonder why you’re not, and we have to define normal as well because it’s never normal.

But far quicker than you. So everybody is different. And then again, it’s very difficult to get builders, plumbers, electricians, generally speaking. Let alone after floods and also people can choose to do things in a different way. For instance, you can be paid a lump sum of the assessed damage and then you can employ your local builder and your local untrusted electrician, etc.

But if anything goes wrong, the onus is on you. If you stick with your insurance companies preferred Then if things go wrong, you can look to your insurance company and say, Fix it. This isn’t right. So there are two, two sort of avenues you can take there as well. So I’ve given a very general overview of what happens, but each house is different.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: And just one thing to be aware of with Mary saying that you can take a lump sum and get people to come in and do the work yourself. One of the things that we find that happens after a big surge event, a big flood event, is the cowboy builders that try and take advantage and it’s a real problem and we’ve, between us, I’m sure we’ve got lots of examples, Mary, where people have not been they’ve been left high but not dry by their builders and, unfortunately, if you aren’t using the ones through your insurance company, the, you’ve got no, not much comeback and we’ve noticed some really sad stories.

So while it might be take a little bit longer if you’re having to wait for the approved ones, it’s worth doing that.

Mary Long- Dhonau: I absolutely agree. Unless you’ve got an absolutely trusted builder that you know and has done work for you in the past and you trust them 100 percent stick with your insurer.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Absolutely, we’ve all, I mean there’s always the examples where you really do know your builder. But if you’ve got someone knocking on your door, asking for work, think twice. Yeah,

Matt Nally: we’ve seen that with just things like debates around, does the kitchen need to come out to dry out properly? And, if it does, will the kitchen be covered to be refitted or is it, you’re going to have to try and.

And your new kitchen, or are you going to try and dodgedly refit one that’s there? And it’s not going to go back quite right. And how do you debate that with, particularly if you’re using your own builders versus someone else. But I think one of the things you touched on the inventory side particularly if you’re being asked to do, write down some of the stuff yourself, that’s quite a stress at this.

You suddenly realize how many different things you’ve got. And as much as you go, I can’t be bothered to write half of these down. You add up all of those individual items. Yeah. Yeah. 10 quid here. 100 quid there, whatever. Suddenly that becomes quite a few thousand pounds. So you have to do it, but it’s when you’ve got everything else going on around you and it’s soaking wet and you’re photoing it as evidence and I don’t think we even thought about the fridge freezer to be fair at that point.

Mary Long- Dhonau: I can remember as well when it happened to me that. Because it was, I had a lot of sewage in my house and I just wanted to get the wet stuff out, and one of my kids had a huge collection of beanie babies that were the fashion then, and we put them, I just literally had gloves and put them all in a plastic bag and dumped them outside.

So I could get them out of the property because the quicker you can get wet stuff out of the property, the quicker your property can start drying. But I remember the loss adjuster making me get on my hands and knees and get every single one out so we could count 40 beanie babies that were all. sewage ridden.

So it’s that down to that much detail. Cause say then in those days, each one costs 3. 99, that’s 40 lots of 3. 99. And it does, as you’ve just said, add up. So you literally have to go through everything that’s where, even though it’s so hard to do, isn’t it?

Matt Nally: Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s, you just feel stressed at that point.

’cause there’s so many other things you’re thinking about that it’s just, it feels like least lowest priority.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Yeah. Yeah,

Matt Nally: absolutely. I think the other one that’s actually surprisingly stressful is the dehumidifying is constant drone in the background. So if you do decide to stay for a bit, or I say not even decide, we my half stayed in her place for a bit and I stayed there for a bit too.

Whilst trying to find somewhere else and so couldn’t move out until you had an alternative But you’ve got the fans and the dehumidifiers running and you dry out yourself It’s and that’s the noise constantly going It’s

Mary Long- Dhonau: and the smell we chose to stay at home because of my autistic son being very nocturnal We didn’t think he’d be very welcoming a hotel but we listened to the dehumidifiers and fans, but also the smell of That have got into the fabric of your house.

There are no words to describe the smell. And you’ve got all that. And so I would encourage everybody to move out if they possibly can. Because of that, the noise, constant noise and the smell.

Matt Nally: Yeah, I agree with that. What would you say the reality is on timeframes? I know we touched on this beforehand where you’ll get people messaging you a week later going, you’re back to normal and you’ll see stuff on the news, like there’ll be out for a couple of weeks.

What’s the reality of the impact of a flood in terms of, flood happens and then back to start back to your back, not normal, but back to reset,

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think the average they say is about nine months, don’t they Mary? But I would say prepare for at least 12 months and you’re prepared mentally because you just don’t know what’s going to be found.

And it depends on the time of year as well. If you’re lucky, not lucky, but if you’ve got, a bit of sunshine and a bit of warmth, that helps with the drying process. If it’s like it is now and it’s freezing cold and, We’re in winter and down, then it’s going to take longer.

So there’s lots of contributing factors, age of house, size of house, how your walls are constructed, all sorts of things. But I think if you look at about 9 to 12 months, that’s around what we hear. There’s, and either side, we hear people for 18 months, people back in six months. If that’s what you mentally prepare for, I think, would you agree with that, Mary, from your experience with people

Mary Long- Dhonau: ab Absolutely would.

And I guess Matt, now, because you are living the dream, would you agree with that ?

Matt Nally: I would, I absolutely would. I think we are probably about three months in and we still haven’t got to a point of agreeing that it’s dried in terms of, not us, the contractors and builders and insurance. Plus you’ve then got to agree on schedule of works and get a bill back. I’d be surprised if we’re back within six months. So I think, yeah. Rental contracts that will continue beyond that. So yeah, I don’t, I, my, my guess is going to be about nine months. Hopefully, but but you’re right. It could extend beyond, but we’re at that same point as winter right now.

So it’s colder, it’s damper, it’s takes longer to dry. So I’d completely agree with timeframes. I think one question I actually had around that around once you’ve had that flood and you’re back in, obviously at some point you’ll want to renew your insurance, is it harder to get insurance? If you’ve been flooded before and with all the flooding going on, perhaps it’s more, we’re reading a lot more about it having been flooded and there’s the hype recently because there’s been further floods.

Is there a risk that insurers will start to stop ensuring stuff like that with, more overbuilding and going on, or is it something that will always provide or just become more expensive? So a few questions tied into one and interrupt. You there.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Shall I take this one Mary? It feels like it’s Oh absolutely.

In my wheelhouse. It’s yours,

So the reason Flood re was set up is because, in 2007 when we saw those horrific floods and people were then trying to get insurance, we were seeing people either not be able to get insurance, be quoted. tens of thousands of pounds or have excesses. I heard of excesses of 20 or 30, 000, which essentially you’re self insuring at that point.

And so the market was really broken. And then the insurance industry, along with the government got together and set up Fludry. Now we’re lucky in this country. And I say lucky Flood insurance comes as standard with a home insurance policy that isn’t the same across the world. And so most people don’t even think about flood insurance.

It’s just part of their home insurance. And that’s the same. You take out a home insurance policy, not a flood policy. With the flood re scheme, what it means is if an insurance company decides that they don’t want to take on the risk of your property, and that could be for many reasons they can pass the flood portion of that policy over to flood re.

And flood re sets the premiums based on your council tax band. So it’s a flat fee based on council tax band. And we have a flat excess of 250 for flood claims. In theory, people shouldn’t have a problem. We do hear one or two cases that come to us. Either they’ve got a house that was built post 2009.

And I say 2009 because that is when Our cutoff for policies is any houses built after 2009 are not eligible for flood free. And the reason is when flood free was set up, the government committed to not building on floodplains and building homes in a more flood resilient way. Or we have people that live in buildings with multiple dwellings within them, so flats, apartment blocks or they might have a house that’s part of a business and we don’t cover businesses.

So for that, we worked with the British Insurance Brokers Association and the Association of British Insurers. And I think it was about 18 months ago now we launched a flood insurance directory where you can find a specialist broker that can help you out. And I really do think if you are having any problems Shopping around on the normal price comparison websites might not be the way for you.

It might be absolutely fine, but going to a specialist broker that can really talk to you about your home and go and place that business is the way to go. Is that something people are made aware of when they’re looking to buy a house in terms of whether it’s pre or? Post 2009. Does that come up in the buying process like under conveyancing that?

Matt Nally: Is this something people should be aware of? Or is it not too important?

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I don’t know if it comes up in the buying process, Mary. Have you got any insight into that? I don’t think it does. I’m

Mary Long- Dhonau: not too sure at all. It’s just when people start to shop around for insurance, and that’s a crucial point in the property purchase, that you’ll find that people can’t get insurance and they drop out.

Matt Nally: Interesting. That would be an interesting one to explore actually separately to this. But yeah, I didn’t, I wasn’t aware of that 2009 split. But it’s great to know.

Mary Long- Dhonau: You can’t incentivize building on the flood plain. And if you guarantee insurance to everybody.

Irrespective when the houses were built, you’re incentivizing the developer to build on the floodplain. So there has to be a cut off point. And prior to Flood Reef, there was a sort of memorandum of understanding between the Association of British Insurers and the government. And that cut off was 2009.

So really it was a carry on from that. But my sort of strong belief is that we literally can’t incentivize. with any building on the floodplain because that’s where the river naturally goes when it’s full.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I don’t know about you, Mary or Matt, but I’ve been driving around in the last, couple of months with where we’ve had Flooding or at least a lot of water come down and you drive around and lots of farmland that is flooded and you think yeah, that, that’s where it should be.

But then you see a big developer sign saying new houses being built here soon. And halfway up the sign is the flood water. And you think where’s that going to go? At what point are we going to be able to, capture that water? How is that going to work? And I’ve seen it time and time again.

One development not far from where I am now. And I, you drive past and you think, I wouldn’t buy a house there. And, really expensive houses.

Mary Long- Dhonau: And there are pictures on the net, loads of them, of a development halfway built, and it’s flooded. And you think, crikey. And also, I support, I’ve been supporting an increasing number of people who have moved into new homes, who have been flooded.

A few months later, one moved in to their very first home, a very young couple in the April, and they were flooded in September with Storm Bette last year. I was talking to my MP yesterday and she’s supporting a young couple with a brand new baby that moved into a new home only to be flooded a few months later, I went, that’s outrageous.

Matt Nally: I suppose part of the problem is if you don’t particularly know the area, you, someone like yourself, Kelly, you drive past it, you go up and wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole, but if you’re not from the area and it’s the right price and it looks nice in summer when it’s been completed then yeah, you’d be tempted to go for it.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: When I was looking to buy the house that we’re in now, so that’s. 2011 when I had a small baby. One of the houses that we went to see was on a relatively new development in High Wycombe and the development’s called Wycombe Marsh.

Matt Nally: Oh, yeah.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I remember going, so where does the river go?

Because there is a river that goes through Wickham. They said, Oh no, we’ve just diverted it under.

So this is called Marsh because this is the marshland, right? No, I won’t buy a house here. Unfortunately, lots of people do and have because don’t necessarily think, Oh, something’s called Marsh or, Floodway. Watery

Mary Long- Dhonau: Lane.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Watery Lane. Oh, where were we recently? I’m sure I was with you, Mary.

And we actually went past a flood lane. And I thought, Oh! It’s telling you!

Matt Nally: It’s all there. Just have to check it out.

Mary Long- Dhonau: I remember when I was house hunting, I’ve been in my home for four years, when I was house hunting with my then to be husband, and I remember on one occasion, and this is common sense really, if everybody could go with their sort of flood eyes open we’ve went to look at a property.

It was absolutely gorgeous. We didn’t look at it eventually because of me. And it had a culvert going underneath the road and straight underneath the property. And I just refused to get out. Because I knew that if say, think there was a blockage in that culvert. Because you’ve got something called riparian responsibility, we own that bit of culvert and we have the responsibility to it.

We could have found ourselves a flooded and be having to spend thousands digging up that culvert to maintain it. So there’s lots of things that people should consider. For instance, the flood road and the watery lane, and if there’s any nearby streams, Matt, and and culverts and things like that open your eye to the fact you might be at flood risk.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think, Mary, also, we’re so trustworthy, aren’t we? Oh, yes. Because we think someone’s built a house here, it’s a new development. It might be called The Marsh, but they wouldn’t build a house here that wasn’t suitable and wasn’t going to be stood here in however many years time.

But, unfortunately. And it’s really sad, you just can’t trust all of that, you have to do your own digging around. And I think what really gets to me, and there was a report out by the British Red Cross just before Christmas on flood poverty. And they’ve done a map of the UK. And people that are the most vulnerable are those that can least afford.

to be able to cope with floods. So they probably don’t have insurance or certainly not contents insurance if they’re in rented accommodation and just don’t have. support systems, any extra cash spare, because even if you are going to have things repaid, there are things that you have to pay out for automatically.

If you need to get your kids to school, you have to get them to school. You can’t wait for a payout to get them a taxi or whatever. And. That’s a real sad reality that a lot of people that are living at flood risk are those that are least able to cope with it. And I was only speaking with the Member of Parliament for South Warrington yesterday.

Her constituency have had 140 households in the last couple of months flooded, and most of them are in the most vulnerable category. And she told me a really sad story of an elderly lady that had multiple issues that she was dealing with that walked into her office soaking wet from flood water, not knowing where to even start.

And she said, the first thing I had to do was give her, something dry to put on and a cup of tea. And that’s where we’re starting from. I think, those are the people that we really need to be thinking, are we going to build in those areas? Are we how do we protect where, traumatic at the best of times if you have, a support system, whether that be money, family, et cetera, around you, but to have nothing is, and lots of people that.

This lady that we were talking about yesterday, really, she was suffering from not having full mental capacity to be able to deal with anything. And it’s those people that need the real protection. Sorry to bring it down, . No, it’s true. Flood. Flood unfortunately is just so traumatic

Mary Long- Dhonau: and it’s also indiscriminate.

It doesn’t care who it floods. It can flood the wealthy and the poor. It’s, there’s no sort of cut off. Everybody gets flooded. And that’s why one of the things I did recently was do a YouTube video on how to prepare for a flood because people don’t know how to prepare for a flood. And I used.

Things that just literally lying about the house that might not cost any money just to try and reduce the impact things like, a couple of Wellington boots on table legs and a bucket and a plastic bin, just to protect the table legs and then you can chuck things on top, just simple things around the house that can make a big difference to the actual damage.

So we have to focus on absolutely everybody and be inclusive. As Kelly’s just said.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: That video Mary is absolutely fantastic and I was promoting it yesterday to many MPs, so I’m sure you’re going to get lots of people clicking on it. But like Mary said, there are things that we can do to protect ourselves if we know.

And I think number one. Is if you think you are at any kind of flood risk is putting together a little plan of what you’re going to do and a list of things that you need to grab and take with you, because. It, you just, when you are in that kind of traumatic fight or flight, thinking, Oh, I need to make sure I’ve grabbed my phone charger is probably not high on the list.

It would be for my children. That would be the first thing on their list. I forget that when I’m not under pressure. Exactly. I’ve now reframed because the Environment Agency and everybody are very hot on flood plans. I’ve now reframed it as a to do list because everybody has to do lists.

Mary Long- Dhonau: So I now say when I’m doing a media interview, have a to do list so you know exactly what you’re going to do. Because let’s say that we have hopefully signed up for a flood warning and actually the uptake of Environment Agency free flood warnings. incredible, woefully low, but you’ve got your flood warning and your mind turns to spaghetti.

You think, Oh my God, having lived through it. But if you’ve got that to do list, you think, Oh, move my car because you don’t want a flooded house under flooded car. It can bring you to your knees. Literally have a list that’s bespoke to your family, your household. Your sons, their charges, me being older, it being my prescription, remember I paid for prescription, I can get me meds and stuff like that, things that are really important to everybody.

Matt Nally: I definitely agree with that. Just to touch on your point, Callie, I think around there’s a surprising amount that you do have to pay up, pay out for yourself and then claim back that you just don’t think about. I can’t think of an example right now because it’s been a little while. But but yeah, unless you’ve got that cash up front you’re stuck and that you’re under that financial pressure then as well. So it’s yeah, it’s a tough one.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Yeah I thought I was really prepared before Christmas I took my children away up to Scotland for a couple of days came back on the 23rd of December I thought I prepared lovely. I lost the whole contents of my fridge and freezer.

So I had nothing left And I think we arrived back about 8 o’clock on the 23rd. So 24th of December I’m with the Wells and their wife replacing everything that’s in my fridge and freezer. And those are the kind of things you lose with the flood. And, you’ve might have all your meals prepared.

You might have bought, done your monthly shop and, not necessarily have the money to be able to go out and restock straight away. But yeah.

Mary Long- Dhonau: So did you, I take it you had a power cut then? I did.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: It was a power cut, not a flood. But yeah, just the worst.

Matt Nally: The shops are already getting empty at that point, aren’t they? I

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: was like, it’s fine. I’m all good. I’d even made my red cabbage, Mary. That was all I needed. Did like

Matt Nally: a good red cabbage. I suppose on the sort of route we’ve been taking there, should we touch on flood defense and build back better?

Yeah. So I suppose once you are building back or there’s the build back better scheme, which we can explain what that is. And then if you haven’t gone through and you’re worried about the flood risk, do the types of things you can put in place to along with to do lists things that you can do to.

Sort of, yeah, help prevent an issue arising. Shall we start with what the Build Back Better scheme is? Is that a good starting

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: spot? Yeah, absolutely. Build Back Better. It’s a real change in how insurers are dealing with putting people back into their homes after flood. Flood we got permission from government.

Gosh, it must be coming up to three years ago now. To be able to offer build back better. And what that means is an insurance company that is signed up to the build back better scheme is able to offer a household up to 10, 000 to put their house back, not just into the state it was before, but to improve its flood resilience.

So putting property flood resilience measures into a home. And so that could be things such as non return valves smart self closing air bricks flood doors, barriers water butts in your to collect runoff kitchens that are not made of MDF, but are able to be cleaned down waterproof plasters, different floorings, all sorts of things.

And it’s really bespoke to the individual house and what that house needs. So rather than, so the principle of insurance is to go back to the position you were before. You shouldn’t benefit, as it were, from an insurance claim. But what Build Back Better does is make sure that you are able to be in a better position if floodwaters come again.

Now we’re not saying that Build Back Better will keep necessarily all the water out, but it might mean you’re able to recover quicker. Your house dries out quicker. You’re able to, get back in, in a much more timely manner. One of the people that has built back better that we’ve spoken to.

They were out of their house for about 12 12 months with a, I think it was a 24, 000 bill of flood repairs that the insurance company picked up. The next time, They were back in their house, watching TV, I think within 48 hours of the flood. So the floodwaters still did get in a little bit, but the trauma that’s caused and the upset and the disruption was totally minimised.

And that. is what we should be doing when we’re flooded, but also how we should be building houses to cope with flooding. So the, water will go places. We can’t stop the water from getting everywhere, but what we can do is be more prepared. You only have to look at the Netherlands.

probably one of the most floody, wettest countries. You don’t hear about them having floods all in their houses because they’ve built accordingly and appropriately for their climate.

Mary Long- Dhonau: Yeah, and I have to say that one thing I want to ask you, Kelly if somebody’s flooded this year and benefits, like Matt, from the 10, 000 and he floods again next year, can he get the 10, 000 again?

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if there’s any DEFRA EA grant schemes, they can also benefit from that. So if you are flooded the next time, you can then do even more to improve your house. And how it works, Matt. So say you needed a new door and your, the door that you needed was 1500 pounds, for example, but a flood door was 3000 pounds.

The Build Back Better cost would only be 1, 500 out of your 10, 000. It’s the additional cost on top. It wouldn’t be the cost of the whole 3, 000 all.

Mary Long- Dhonau: Now, and also, for instance, if you’ve got A kitchen need to replace your kitchen. You will get a co, you will get an estimate to replace it exactly as it is, but then an estimate for a flood recoverable kitchen of which I suffer from kitchen envy at some of the flood recoverable kitchens that are on the market now.

Build back better or pay the difference. So you can get a lot of money, a lot of stuff for that 10,000 pounds. And

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: we know that there’s a lot more companies now that are affordable, that are making kitchens and other household items that are flood recoverable. In fact, I think Mary, we need to get a road trip, in the diary and go and see the different kitchens available and make sure that we know what’s on the market between you and us. Oh,

Mary Long- Dhonau: absolutely. Yes, I did a visit myself and I’ll tell you about it offline too and that’s why I’ve got kitchen envy. because that was absolutely lovely and they’re plastic and they can literally be washed down, sanitized and you could be using them again.

But before Build Back Better happened Fluttery asked me to gather some evidence and that’s why I traveled around the country getting the evidence of people who had. build back better or really made adaptations to their homes and some of them were really, if you stop and think, we’re talking about the average person out of their home for nine months, some of them were out of their home on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and watching the telly again on Thursday just because they’d For me, I’m more focused on recoverability, so really, if the flood water does get in, that your home can recover very quickly.

And many of the people I talk to can be quite deep with water that’s in the home because of the proximity to one of them. It’s called Brook Cottage. another name and she’s got the river seven behind her and the brook running along the side of her but because of the amazing moves she’s taken she can literally be three foot deep in water and then watching the telly the next day because of the recoverable aspects of our home.

So the waterproof plaster, the solid floors, we obviously, one of my favorite bits of kit here, pumps, submersible pumps that I was talking to you earlier about, offline mat, and also puddle pumps, so we can keep the level of the water down and the electrics up the wall, and this flood resilient kitchens, lighting fires, and coupled with your flood plan, so you know what to do when you get your flood warning.

That all those combined can reduce the amount of time you’re out of your home. Absolutely.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think one of the things we need to probably do a shout out to now as well is Things have changed, and pretty rapidly. When I started at Flood Re, okay, it was four years ago, but about 12 months ago I was looking online to see how available flood protection products were for the average person, and there was very little available.

Roll on now Wix, for example, has a whole flood protection page of their website and we’re advertising the products on a well known radio station recently over the winter period. Mary, I, that’s a massive change, isn’t it?

Mary Long- Dhonau: Absolutely massive, yes, and you can, and self closing airbricks. Self closing airbricks are available, and just an airbrick cover, a basic airbrick cover is 24 quid.

And when you would think, if we can, I can always like to put things into the amount of water. Big builders rubble bags, we know how big those are, full to the top of water. Five of those, every hour, can go into a home via the airbricks. So if you’ve got a self closing airbrick, fantastic, it will automatically shut.

Don’t forget you have to maintain them because detritus will get in there after a flood, and so will spider’s webs and things, so they need maintenance. A bit like our cars or our boilers, but they will automatically shut. But, for 24 quid you can get an airbrick cover that will do the same.

But you have to remember that The environment agency flood warnings tend to come at 3. 30 in the morning when it’s blowing a hoolie and you’re out there with a head torch on, so you need, and you’re having to fit in the pouring rain the airbricks. So obviously Kelly and I much prefer the self closing ones, and so would you if you were fitting self close airbrick covers at 3 o’clock in the morning in those circumstances.

Matt,

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: we advise you get some.

Matt Nally: Yeah, no, that’s going to be on my list. I think the the airbricks definitely. One of my final questions around actually that flood defence part was two things. One is there a reason it’s a 10, 000 limit and not limit, but amount? My question there is is that if you were looking to do your own flood defence?

property. Is that kind of the average you might want to consider spending? Is that sort of why it’s been set as like an appropriate amount in that case?

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: We had to start somewhere when we were talking about better. We’ve actually put in proposals to defer to be able to up it to 15, 000 pounds.

So hopefully at some point we’ll hear from them. But you can add to it as well. If you have If you’re getting Build Back Better done, there’s nothing to say that the individual householder can’t put more to it. No. And, you, it’s how long is a piece of string, isn’t it, Mary, with what you can do?

We’ve seen some fantastic products where people have membranes put on the whole of their walls to take flood water down the walls and underneath and divert it out. Most people wouldn’t do that. You would do that if you’re, one riverside cottage river way, maybe and you’re flooding all the time.

But, just by a few thousand pounds worth of work, you can really make your home or flood recoverable.

Mary Long- Dhonau: For instance again, we were talking offline how a lot of water comes through the walls. People often say, oh my, my flood protection products failed. But when having watched, I had all the plaster knocked off in my home, and the deep humidifiers were going, and I flooded again.

And I was able to watch how the water came through my, into my home. And I was astounded to see it. It was like somebody had turned on 30 taps in just one of the rooms that I was in. And it was pouring through the walls. So we actually ended up tanking the walls. But you can, and also another very weak place is where the walls join the floor.

And so if you put a fillet of slurry, waterproof slurry there, that can reduce the amount of water that gets in, and that doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and it works very well. And things like waterproof and breathable mortar, and you can get a waterproof cream solution that you can paint over the walls that allows the wall to breathe, but slows down the ingress of water.

And if you couple the waterproof mortar with that, with the cream, it really hugely reduced the amount of water that can get into a house. Now it, that. In the cosmic scheme of things isn’t terribly expensive thing to do. It’s time consuming But you’ve got a good DIYer could do something like that.

Matt Nally: Interesting. It sounds like there’s a lot of solutions out there and obviously what’s There’s no point asking what’s the sort of most appropriate generally, because it completely case specific, isn’t it? On, on, on the house and the environment. But if if anyone was looking to find out more information on what might be the right thing to do in terms of, I know you guys have both got guides.

Is it yeah, great. If you could pointless to them in a second. And then are there other sources like specific types of advisors that can come around, like surveyor types that can advise on specific properties what to do?

Mary Long- Dhonau: Yes Syria has a code of practice which people have to adhere to, so let’s go back to the cowboys.

And CIWEM, the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, run a training course now for people to upskill, really, like you as a surveyor could upskill to become a property flood resilience surveyor, of which there are quite limited people. People with those skills. But somebody with the, that’s got a code of practice certification in property flood resilience surveys.

And people often come to me and I point them in the right direction of people that’ve got suitable skills that will come and assess the risk of your property. And again, on my website, and I’ve got the code of practice and it’s for householders and people can look through and see. or have at their fingertips all the questions they need to ask surveyors.

So they will come and basically in a nutshell they will give you a prescription. of property flood resilience measures that are appropriate to your home. So they may be different to the home down the road but they’re for your home and then you will and you certainly get that through the build back scheme you will have the property surveyed and then so you don’t go if you’re flooded from underneath you don’t go fitting a flood door for instance you’d need to concentrate on groundwater flooding and sump pumps and things.

So always look for someone that’s Suitably qualified to do a survey of your property that gives you the bespoke prescription of products for your property.

Matt Nally: Yeah, otherwise the flood door ends up keeping the water in rather than keeping it out.

Mary Long- Dhonau: I’ve heard

Matt Nally: of that happening. Yes.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: I think other than Flood Re’s website, Floodmary.

com we’ve also got the Association of British Insurers have got a guide to recovering from a flood. And there’s the Be Flood Ready website, which has lots of resources. And the Flood

Mary Long- Dhonau: Hub. As well, they have a lot of resources. Awesome.

Kelly Ostler-Coyle: There are a lot of things out there. The Be Flood Ready is trying to encapsulate all the resources at the moment to make sure that people don’t have to, look too far.

But you can’t go wrong with Mary’s website either. It’s, so it’s a wealth of information. I spend a lot of time on there. Thank you. Oh,

Mary Long- Dhonau: that’s nice to know. Yeah,

Matt Nally: that’s an impressive impressive amount of information on there. But yeah, I’ve really enjoyed chatting through all the different aspects today.

It’s been really interesting. I’ve learned a lot more than, than I’ve learned already through the last three months. But yeah, so thank you very much for coming on and sharing your insights. Really appreciate it.

Mary Long- Dhonau: It’s my pleasure