This collection of fifteen accounts of flood by ABC senior journalist Ian Mannix, relates the stories of Australians caught in flood, from Grantham to Mackay, Kempsey to Bullita Station.

In recent years, flood has devastated the wide brown land, in some instances bringing much-needed relief from drought, but in many others, bringing tragedy, homelessness and despair.

From the 1970s to the present day, Ian Mannix charts the pattern of floods in Australia, and recounts many stories, from the story of two local women trapped in a house infested with snakes as the flood waters rose ever higher, to the daring helicopter rescues of the townsfolk of Newry in Gippsland and the brave truck driver who saved the town of Charleville in Queensland by putting levee walls in place against oncoming flood, and with all the odds stacked against him. And of course, he examines the causes and effects of the devastating floods in Queensland in 2010-2011, which have taken so many lives.