Among them was Graham Thompson, who headed up a team of volunteers and opened a control centre in the town as a hub for people to get help, advice or have a cup of tea.
Graham remembers it vividly, and says: “In 2009 I was chairman of Keswick’s flood action group and led the campaign to get improved defences, so to see them overtopped was devastating.
“One of my memories is of walking along to advise people to evacuate and the water was already on its way up the glass wall at High Hill.
“By the time we’d got everyone who wanted to leave out it was already at eye level on the other side of the glass, which was scary.”
Lynne Jones, now chairman of the flood action group, is still out of her Crosthwaite Gardens home a year after Storm Desmond, but that hasn’t stopped her battling for change to protect residents.
Lynne’s main concern, on top of dealing with her own situation, is trying to secure more stormwater capacity at Thirlmere.
She believes this would both defend Keswick and reduce the impact further downstream.
She said: “If there’s no money to do absolutely everything, let’s just stop it coming down in such large volumes.
“It’s taken three floods for people to say we need to look at this from the mountains down.
“What we do now can protect us for decades to come.”
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