CRANSTON — Rhode Island was overwhelmed by a massive hurricane that didn’t happen, and the problems it created taught state emergency officials what they could be facing if the real thing comes along this season.

Instead of 130,000 people in harm’s way, Rhode Island could have upward of 400,000 people evacuating from regions hit by a massive hurricane. Rhode Island doesn’t have enough shelters to hold them all, nor does it have enough volunteers. Main roads and bridges would be wiped out, making it tricky for officials to figure out how to get resources to those stranded in places such as Aquidneck Island.

These were some of the issues state officials said they found during the federal hurricane exercise run earlier this month. “Hurricane Yvette” followed the track of the 1938 hurricane during a drill run jointly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, one of several large-scale national exercises under Operation Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge 2007. The exercises were meant to test how well-prepared the federal government, the military, and the states are at working together to handle a major disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. Rhode Island volunteered to host the Northeast exercise, which involved the New England states and New York.

“The hurricane season is only a few days away, so it behooves us to build on the lessons of Ardent Sentry and make it better,” Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray, the commanding general of the Rhode Island National Guard, told the Emergency Management Advisory Council yesterday. He said there were issues about command and control that need to be improved.

While Robert J. Warren, the executive director of the state Emergency Management Agency, said he didn’t believe Rhode Island would have as many as 400,000 evacuees, he said the state needed to think about people seeking shelter if their houses are damaged. State officials had only planned for evacuees from the areas affected by storm surge — about 130,000 people.

The American Red Cross of Rhode Island has been in talks with the University of Rhode Island and Community College of Rhode Island for at least a year about using buildings that could shelter thousands, but nothing has happened. Without enough shelters, evacuees will seek out “spontaneous shelters” — any place they think could be safe — and the Red Cross won’t know where they are, said the Rev. John Holt, the director.

“We need to talk more closely with cities and towns about how these shelters will work,” Holt said. “The Red Cross can’t do it alone.”

The state EMA and Health Department have been trying for at least a year to set up a registry for the elderly and people with special needs who would need help evacuating. However, the state ran into issues of patient confidentiality when it attempted to obtain information on people who may need help. “It’s such a complex issue,” Warren said. It’s now up to individuals to tell the state or local emergency officials that they’ll need help and the kind of help they’ll need, he said.

“But one of the issues is, how do we get people to tell us?” Warren said.

Dr. L. Anthony Cirillo, chief of the Health Department’s center for emergency preparedness and response, said the hospitals learned about making decisions about evacuating patients or sheltering in place. The nursing homes were queried about what they would need to take with them if they evacuated patients, Cirillo said. That test made the Health Department realize they should have standardized forms for the hospitals to use to quickly answer questions about what assistance they’d need, he said.

Meanwhile, Glenn Field, warning-coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass., gave officials NOAA’s forecast for this hurricane season. The agency predicts 7 to 10 hurricanes developing this year, with 3 to 5 becoming major hurricanes. “All those numbers are interesting, but it only takes one,” said Field, “so, be prepared for it.”

amilkovi@projo.com