Dad-of-four PC Bill Barker, 44, was stopping traffic on a bridge in Workington, Cumbria, in November 2009 when it collapsed into the swollen River Derwent and he was swept to his death.
Now, as Cumbria counts the devastating cost of Storm Desmond, his widow Hazel Barker, 51, has accused the Government of failing to spend enough on flood defences to protect the beleaguered region.
“It just keeps going through my head that this should never have happened again,” she said.
“That bridge Bill was on had been there for many years and it crumbled like Lego. Mother Nature proved how powerful she is.
“It’s happening all over again. Lessons obviously weren’t learned. It’s soul- destroying for me that these people should have to go through it again.”
Hazel and Bill (PA)
The storm flooded more than 2,000 homes and left more than 60,000 properties without power across Cumbria, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and the Scottish Borders.
Forecasters have warned extreme weather could wreak more havoc this weekend.
Hazel said the Government needed to cut the amount it spent on foreign aid to help shore up domestic flood protection.
She said: “In other countries they know what a giving country we are, and we always will be, but there is a time when you’ve got to say ‘enough’.
“And when we have our own people protected and our own country is in order then is the time to be charitable.”
A Cumbrian aid appeal has raised more than £1.2 million.
All over the region there have been incredible tales of everyday people helping each other.
Hazel is full of pride at the “incredible resilience” of her fellow Cumbrians but last weekend’s storm transported her right back to 4.40am on November 20, 2009, the moment her husband died.
“It’s a physical pain,” she said. “I felt very lonely and still do.
“I don’t need reminders of how we lost Bill but the impact of the weather, it’s unbearable and you can’t get away from it.
“We’re in a three-storey house and wherever you go you hear the wind and rain and there’s no escape from it.”
At the height of Desmond, Hazel prayed no harm would come to 999 workers.
It was only when two police officers visited her at home last Sunday, to tell her everyone had been accounted for, she began to breathe a little more easily.
Hazel, disabled by a severe musculoskeletal condition, has been supported by her children, Simon, 23, Melissa, 21, Daniel, 19, and Emma-Louise, 13.
However, she remains too traumatised to return to her late husband’s grave and she has not been back to Northside Bridge, where he died, since attending the reopening ceremony in 2012.
She added: “I had to destroy my children’s lives when I told them what had happened.
“So when you see lessons weren’t learned, it takes you right back and the pain is just as strong.
“You have to live with the consequences of the loss and there are times when it’s the hardest thing in the world.”
Last night a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said their “thoughts and sympathies” were with Hazel and her family.
He said a six-year £2.3 billion plan to build new flood defences would protect an additional 300,000 homes and reduce flood risk.
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