Just over a year after the devastating Queensland floods in summer 2011, which wreaked havoc on Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, UQP have released an account of the disaster and the torrential conditions that led to it - The Torrent: Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, 10 January 2011. Here, journalist and Toowoomba local Amanda Gearing tells of how she spent months interviewing survivors and documenting their stories, and how a chance suggestion led her to compile the first draft in just ten weeks.

At my home on the Toowoomba escarpment, within a couple of hundred metres from the top of Mount Lofty, an intense rain storm sent run-off flowing down the road on January 10, 2011. It was obvious there would be a major flood. I reported the disaster for three weeks for The Australian, realising with each passing day that there would be long-term impacts for the families and friends of those who had died, or those who had narrowly escaped perilous situations. The young children involved would one day ask, ‘What happened?’ I decided to spend the year interviewing survivors and writing a book to explain what happened and why.

After three months of interviewing survivors in Grantham, I made a presentation about my interviews to my University class. A lecturer suggested I approach a local publisher. I phoned the following day. UQP publisher John Hunter asked me to send him a chapter that weekend. On the Monday he phoned back and said he was interested if I could deliver the final manuscript in ten weeks.

My journalist training helped me rationalise that I could write a 5000 word feature, or chapter, each week for ten weeks. I set deadlines. From Monday to Wednesday each week I recorded interviews with survivors. On Thursdays I transcribed the recordings and on Fridays I shaped the separate stories into chronological order to form each chapter.

As I spoke to more than 100 survivors and rescuers I found they had an inner determination to tell the stories despite their traumatic experiences, so that those who died would not be forgotten, so that lessons could be learned, so that warning systems and disaster responses could be improved, so that if another similar disaster occurs here or somewhere else, the cost in lives and possessions will not be so devastating.

Sometimes hearing so many stories overwhelmed me but the deadline loomed. I walked outside for a few minutes and recalled the many people who had hugged me after their interviews, thanked me for listening and begged me, with tears in their eyes, to keep going. I returned to the computer and kept going. Some survivors volunteered to read their chapter to check the facts. Some read the whole book and found it had helped them to understand what had happened and why. On January 3 the book was released, beginning the community awareness of flash flooding that will improve preparedness in future and hopefully, save lives.