When Lisa Spierling heard her four-year-old son's panicked screams and turned to see a wall of water rushing towards her family, only one thought crossed her mind: Run!
Ms Spierling is one of several eyewitnesses to the 2011 floods in Grantham, in southeast Queensland, who will be sharing their tales of survival over coming weeks.
The floods on January 10, 2011 killed 12 people.
The Grantham Floods Commission of Inquiry began public hearings on Monday after the community, unsatisfied with a broader inquiry in 2012, campaigned to have the devastating events reinvestigated.
The new inquiry, which is headed by Commissioner Walter Sofronoff QC, will focus on the impact the town's sand quarry had on the flood's ferocity.
Many locals are convinced a quarry wall allowed water to build up before breaking and unleashing a "wall of water" over the small town.
Ms Spierling told the inquiry she was used to flooding and there was nothing out of the ordinary to her day until panicked neighbour Robert Wilkin ran into her home instructing her family to evacuate.
She said both families escaped in Mr Wilkin's ute and had made it to the town's rail line, which is on higher ground.
By that time the water was gushing past and she saw a house she recognised "at a 45 degree angle up in the air".
"At one stage my son, Hans, started screaming quite loudly and drew my attention to the west - at the wave of water coming down the railway line," she said.
"It was just a split-second of looking and realising we had to get out of there ... we started running."
Lawyer Saul Holt, representing some of the victims, said his clients weren't happy with the original inquiry and were adamant the quarry's huge wall, then owned by businessman Denis Wagner and his family, contributed to the flood's devastation.
"The suggestion that that didn't have a substantial impact on the behaviour of the floodwaters is something that, at least on its face, may not pass the sanity test," Mr Holt said.
But Nicholas Andreatidis, representing the Wagners, said a new report, commissioned for his clients by hydrology firm WRM, found the quarry had "no material impact" on the flooding and even slightly reduced the flood levels in the town.
"(The damage) was inevitable based on the magnitude of flooding," Mr Andreatidis said.
More residents will take to the stand on Tuesday.
The inquiry will also hear from hydrology experts in coming weeks.
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