Hi Anne, 

That must indeed have been a frightening moment for you.

Sadly, while it is not 'normal' that a car's power steering fails after just five years, there's not a lot you can do about it with the car out of warranty. If you got the car serviced regularly through a main dealer then they might help by reducing the price a little, but that would be a goodwill gesture rather than something they have to do. You could potentially look into taking a case against Alfa Romeo on the premise that it is reasonable to expect the steering system to last longer than five years, but there's no guarantee that would get you anywhere, and it would certainly cost you more than the price of the repair.