NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- As the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, some residents prepared Saturday to evacuate amid forecasts of another hurricane entering the Gulf of Mexico.
Michelle Fabre lives one street from a canal that survived Katrina intact, but said she doesn't trust it.
"I just want to make sure I get out. I don't want to take any chances," said Fabre, 42, who made hotel reservations away from the coast early Saturday.
Tropical Storm Ernesto, which was in the Caribbean, was projected to become a hurricane Tuesday. It was on track to enter the Gulf of Mexico, but it was too early to tell whether it would strike the southern United States.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said state officials were keeping an eye on Ernesto, and the Army Corps of Engineers was carefully tracking the storm's movement, said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, head of the Army Corps.
It was too early to tell whether Ernesto would provide an early test for the city's levee system, which Strock conceded may not yet be strong enough to withstand a large storm surge.
Strock said he was confident the Corps had done all it could to repair and reinforce 220 miles of levee wall, but said many variables would determine whether the levees could withstand a major hurricane striking near New Orleans, as Katrina did August 29, 2005.
"To pinpoint it to one thing and say 'yes' or 'no' is very difficult," said Strock.
Much would depend on where the hurricane made landfall, wind speed, rainfall and other factors, he said. The biggest concern would be water levels so high that they could cascade over the levee walls, weakening them to the point of breaching.
Officials of the state, city and 14 parishes planned to talk by conference call, New Orleans Homeland Security chief Terry Ebbert said.
"It's critical we make the right call for the right reason," Blanco said, cautioning that they want to ward off the chance of unnecessary evacuations.
Mandatory evacuation in the parishes below New Orleans would kick in when the storm was 50 hours from the coast, Ebbert said. New Orleans would begin mandatory evacuation at the 40-hour mark.
New Orleans already has buses and trains under contract to evacuate people without the means to leave, he said.
Strock appeared Saturday with Blanco and Donald Powell, chairman of President Bush's Gulf Coast rebuilding office, at a news conference to show off new protections since Katrina, including flood gates that can be dropped into the mouths of three large canals to reduce the effect of water surging out of Lake Ponchartrain.
Some of the most substantial work planned on the levee system won't be complete for a couple of years.
Col. Richard Wagenaar, who oversees the New Orleans district of the Corps, said the flood control system, which was breached in three places after Katrina, was equal to or better than it was when Katrina struck, but he said he and his staff have already begun making preparations for Ernesto.
Wagenaar said he would have to weigh all the risks in any decision to close the flood gates. When they are closed, it takes longer to pump rain water out of the city's low-lying areas, creating risks of rain flooding. Much of New Orleans lies below sea-level.
Blanco said although she is not happy with the current strength of the levee system, she believes as much work as possible has been done in the year since Katrina.
"I will feel better when they are fully functional and complete, but it will take time," Blanco said. "We've gotten as far as we could get in one year."