First, thanks for the comment about object_id('tempdb..#t'): I did not realize that would reliably work. I was afraid if 2 sessions both had a #t, object_id() would have the same problem as something like "select * from tempdb.sys.objects where name like '#t%' ", namely, it would not distinguish between the different #t's in the different sessions. Seems that it does that just fine.

As far as the catch not working due to insufficiently severe errors, the drop of a non-existent table raises a severity 11 error. According to BOL (topic "TRY...CATCH"): "A TRY…CATCH construct catches all execution errors that have a severity higher than 10 that do not close the database connection.". So these errors are not caught:

begin try raiserror('severity 10 error, will NOT be caught', 10, 1); end try begin catch select 'catching'; end catch;

begin try print 'this print will print'; end try begin catch select 'catching'; end catch;

... but this will be caught:

begin try raiserror('higher severity error, will be caught', 11, 1); end try begin catch select 'catching'; end catch;

Thanks everyone for your comments.