The Prime Minister said it was "an absolutely horrific thing to happen" to households who now face not being home for Christmas.
Mr Cameron also promised a review of flood defence plans following the devastation caused by Storm Desmond.
He was speaking after visiting a family whose home was hit by two feet of water as torrential rain saw the nearby River Eden overwhelm flood barriers.
Mr Cameron said: "Well it's an absolutely horrific thing to happen and for some of these people it's not the first time it's happened, which is why we built these great barriers here, which have prevented Carlisle from flooding on two other occasions, but they weren't enough this time.
"Something like 14 inches of rain in 24 hours, it really was torrential.
"The emergency services have been brilliant but that's no consolation to people who you know, face a very wet few days and then not perhaps being home for Christmas.
"But after every flood the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask, 'Is it enough?'
"And that's exactly what we will do."
wanted to "live free from the fear of being flooded," he said.
Mr Cameron added: "We need to make sure they get all the support they need.
"Get the insurance claim paid quickly, get them the alternative accommodation, make sure the council picks up the furniture and the things they have had to throw out of their houses, and then try and get them back in as soon as possible.
"So what I will say is, we will stay on this as long as we have with previous floods, you have to stay on it and then make sure we do the work to try and help even more in the future."
Earlier, Environment Secretary Liz Truss defended the Government's spending on flood defences, promising to "do everything we can" to help victims of flooding.
Ms Truss said £2.3bn was being spent on 1,500 schemes to protect 300,000 homes and that there had been an increase in flood defence spending under the coalition and would be under the Conservative government.
However, Labour has accused the Government of cutting flood defence spending and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has claimed that the situation in the north of England had been exacerbated because 300 schemes had been shelved in recent years.
It had emerged that flood defence spending had been due to drop by £116m this year as thousands of families struggle with the aftermath of flooding in the north of the country.
The Government has set aside £695m for dealing with flooding and erosion in 2015/16 – a 14% drop on the previous year, according to the figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
It would have been the biggest year-on-year drop in flood funding for four years.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "Last year, the Prime Minister of Britain promised that 'money is no object' in dealing with flooding, itself a consequence of the destruction of our environment.
"But this has proved to be yet another false promise. In the last parliament, the Government slashed spending on flood defences before the 2014 winter floods.
"The Government has failed to deliver on their promises. They have abandoned the consensus on flood investment built by the Labour party after the 2007 floods - and are failing the British people because of their obsession with austerity."
In February 2014, Mr Cameron pledged there would be "no penny pinching" and that "money would be no object" in dealing with the flooding damage in the South East and South West.
The funding for 2013/14 jumped from £621m to £811m.
Around 2,100 homes in Cumbria and Northumberland were flooded over the weekend.
The scenes sparked questions about why the multimillion-pound flood defences, which were upgraded in 2010 - after floods in 2005 and 2009 - to withstand a "once in 100 years" flood, were breached at the weekend.
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