A race to shore up weakened levees

BATON ROUGE -- The first raindrops from Rita's outer bands began falling in New Orleans yesterday afternoon as engineers performed an 11th-hour bid to strengthen the city's weakened flood protection system and water began seeping into the lower Ninth Ward.

Governor Kathleen Blanco minced no words in telling any holdouts in the largely abandoned city to leave, suggesting they mark their bodies with identifiers so authorities can determine who they were if flood waters claimed them. ''If some people insist on staying -- perhaps they should write their Social Security number on their arms with indelible ink," she said.

Yesterday, the death toll from Katrina rose to 832 in Louisiana as federal officials found more bodies in sections of the city recently pumped dry. The death toll from the Aug. 29 hurricane is now at least 1,069 along the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans was expected to receive only a taste of Rita's wrath, but state and federal officials are deeply concerned that a 6-foot to 12-foot storm surge in New Orleans could punch through isolated sections of recently repaired, but still weakened, levees that broke open three weeks ago and submerged 80 percent of the city.

They were even more worried about outlying parishes such as St. Bernard and Plaquemines.

''What kind of surge they can take at this time is unknown," said Johnny Bradberry, the secretary of the state Department of Transportation and Development. ''In some places," he said, ''you only have 3 to 5 feet of levee left" where there had once been as much as 10 feet of protection height. And although much work has been done in recent weeks to address the flooding, the goal, Bradberry said, has been patching holes and pumping out flood waters, not overhauling the levee system.

New Orleans was under a flood watch last night, with as much as 5 inches of rain expected in coming days and a predicted storm surge of 3 feet to 5 feet, according to meteorologist Chris Sisko of the National Hurricane Center. Army Corps of Engineers officials expected isolated flooding from rain in the Big Easy, a problem that could be exacerbated by debris-clogged drainage pipes.

Army Corps officials said yesterday that they were confident that 100, 60-foot-tall steel sheets driven into the heads of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals at areas that were breached during Katrina will protect the city from even a 12-foot storm surge.

Another concern is the weakened levee system along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. Waters spilling over floodwalls during Katrina created holes in the earthen levee base, and there is concern the walls could collapse.

''The water coming over the top of a levee comes down like a jet," said Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. Bea lost his New Orleans house during Hurricane Betsy in 1965 when floodwalls failed, and is following Katrina's aftermath.

Late yesterday Army Corps of Engineers workers placed pumps throughout the city and conducted last-minute inspections. The workers also had 800 giant sandbags ready to be used, and another 2,500 were being delivered to plug any new holes in the system Rita may create. Workers at an emergency center in New Orleans are set to react if any breaks occur.

''We're concerned, but we continue to plan our next step after Rita, hopefully, decides not to visit us," said Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Mitch Frazier yesterday. ''We're on standby," Frazier said, adding, ''We'll get right back to work."

As Lake Pontchartrain began to rise, water seeped into the lower Ninth Ward and other levee-protected areas of the city. Army Corps officials said such localized leakage was expected. ''It is not a cause for concern," said Frazier. ''Seepage is normal in this type of structure."

Mayor C. Ray Nagin urged any remaining residents to leave the city, but few took him up on offers to be bused out of the city.

Blanco focused much of her attention yesterday on the southwestern part of the state, but had little sympathy for New Orleans residents who decided to stay. Blanco warned the few remaining in New Orleans, and the thousands that have returned to neighboring Jefferson Parish, that the levees may not hold, yet again.

''Everything is fragile in the New Orleans area," she said.

Globe correspondent Keith O'Brien contributed to this story.