Mary Long- Dhonau OBE (FloodMary)

Mary has extensive experience in supporting and advising the victims of flooding during their recovery. Having been flooded herself on many occasions, she champions the effective use of Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures and is vocally passionate about raising awareness of flood risk and PFR /Build Back Better to homeowners, communities, local authorities, government and relevant industries, including insurance and construction. Mary spends much of her time travelling around flood effected parts of the country in a ‘Floodmobile’ (a house on wheels packed full of resilience produces) supporting those newly flooded in their recovery.

Mary has represented the ‘voice of the flood victim’ at government level, she appears regularly on national TV and radio during a flood event and speaks at many flood risk management national and international conferences.

Mary runs her own consultancy FloodMary.com specialising in PFR. She is the author of an eBook ‘Property Flood Resilience, Stories from homes and businesses who have made adaptations to help them recover more quickly after a flood’ Mary is the co-author of the Household Guide to PFR, & the Household Guide to Flood Recovery.

She is a member of the Defra PRF round table and spearheaded the award-winning Cumbria Property Resilience round table.

Mary was awarded an OBE for Services to the Environment in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2009. In Dec 14 she was awarded a HonRICS, in recognition of her high profile for standing up for the public interest regarding flooding. Mary was also given the ‘Voice of the Customer ‘award at the CII Public Interest Awards 2015 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West of England in July 2015 and was made a Hon Fellow of CIWEM in May 2017. Mary was awarded the CIWEM possibility category ’Spotlight’ award at the annual Environment Agency conference in June 2024.

FloodMary.com://www.property-care.org/homeowners/flood-protection/flood-protection-and-your-property/