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Thursday marks the third anniversary since Hurricane Ida made landfall, destroying parts of Southeast Louisiana. Thursday also marks the 19th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. WDSU Chief Meteorologist Emeritus Margaret Orr reflects on what we learned from Hurricane Ida, the first major hurricane to test the New Orleans levee system since improvements from Hurricane Katrina. Forecasting Ida: I knew Hurricane Ida was going to be bad. It was. Ida was a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph. It’s the third time a Category 4 hurricane hit Louisiana. The Last Island Hurricane of 1856 and last year’s Hurricane Laura both had winds of 150 mph. They were all devastating.Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon at 11:55 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021, on the 16th anniversary of Katrina.A nearby ship reported a wind gust of 172 mph. The anemometer at Grand Isle was blown out at 148 mph.Ida was tough remaining a Category 4 hurricane all the way to Houma. A large part of the circulation was still over the warm Gulf, and we have a whole lot of warm water in the bays and bayous of South Louisiana, which helped maintain the hurricane.Ida curved to the East from Houma to Laplace as a Category 3 hurricane wreaking havoc with wind damage. Dulac had a wind gust of 138 mph. Galliano had 121 mph. New Orleans had 113 mph. Some information, of course, was lost as the equipment was blown out or washed away.That wind pushed a lot of water onshore. The storm surge at Grand Isle: 10.30 feet. LaPlace: 11.30 feet. Lakefront: 9.06 feet. Madisonville 8.57 feet. Ocean Springs 5.92 feet.Besides the surge, we had plenty of rain. The Kiln had 13.65 inches of rain– it happens to be 103 miles away from the landfall at Port Fourchon. Slidell had 11.53 inches of rain. Madisonville had 10.06 inches of rain. The Lakefront had 10.74 inches of rain. The heaviest rain fell just on the east side of the eye, but a lot of that information was lost. It’s Doppler estimated that 15-20 inches of rain fell from near Des Allemands to LaPlace to Hammond. Hammond did have 15.46 inches of rain.There were tornadoes, too. At least 13 tornadoes touched down along the Mississippi Coast in Ida’s rainbands.Ida was a terribly destructive hurricane. The surge wiped out homes and businesses. The wind took out buildings, trees and power lines. The rain destroyed what was left of homes damaged by the wind.Ida may be remembered for the piles of debris of memories as far as the eye could see. People died, too. There were 107 total deaths. Of those deaths, 30 were in Louisiana. Most died from the heat. Carbon monoxide poisoning killed at least seven people. Four people died in nursing homes. A shed fell on one man and a tree on another, a man fell off a roof, and another man died of an alligator attack.One of Ida’s biggest hits was the destruction of the power grid. Even a month after Ida, some are left in the dark. Power is a must in the summer heat of Southeast Louisiana.Ida follows a long list of rough hurricanes. Betsy, Camille, Katrina, Isaac, Laura, and now Ida. Every storm is different. You can not look at a past storm and know what damage you will suffer from a future storm. The impacts depend on the path, the size, the speed and the strength.When considering rebuilding, build strong, build high and try to build away from water. Know the weak spots that will always flood and will always be subject to surge.Know this: We will have more catastrophic hurricanes. Bad weather happens everywhere. At least with a hurricane, you can see them coming.