Tropical Storm Hanna is gone, along with the wind, rain and humidity it brought up the coast.

The storm left in its wake fallen trees, downed wires, power failures and flooded streets. But it could have been worse, according to a National Weather Service meteorologist and an official involved in the cleanup.

“We were lucky,” Pawtucket Highway Supt. Ronald Leitao said yesterday morning. “If it had been sustained and had lasted longer, we would have had more of a problem.”

Hanna, which made landfall at the North Carolina and South Carolina state line around 3:20 p.m. Saturday, raced up the Route 95 corridor, AccuWeather.com reported, spreading flooding and damaging winds.

By the time, it reached Rhode Island, however, it was tracking along the coast, the National Weather Service reported. Leitao, who was out until 5 a.m. dealing with storm damage, said the brunt of the storm hit between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.

“For about two or three hours, we had trees down all over the place,” he said.

At 9 p.m. Saturday, about 12,400 National Grid customers in Rhode Island were without power, mostly because of tree limbs knocking down power lines, said David Graves, a spokesman for the utility.

Crews worked through the night, and the number of customers without power dwindled, dropping to 4,000 by midnight and 1,700 by 3 a.m.

As of 8:45 a.m., the number was 750, Graves said, with 123 customers without power in Coventry, 89 in Portsmouth, 72 in Smithfield, 72 in Warwick, 65 in Providence, 53 in East Providence, 53 in North Kingstown and scattered outages elsewhere in the state.

By 5 p.m., National Grid was reporting that 58 Rhode Island customers were without power, 53 in Warwick. Graves said it was unclear how many of the remaining outages were storm related.

Winds reached gale force. At Conimicut Light, sustained winds of 44 mph were recorded, with a gust of 56 mph at 9:56 p.m., said Eleanor Vallier-Talbot, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton, Mass.

Rainfall was heavy, Vallier-Talbot said, with 4.99 inches falling in Coventry, 4.33 inches in North Kingstown, 4.07 inches at T.F. Green Airport, in Warwick, and 3.25 inches in East Providence.

The rain didn’t come down all at once. The totals reflected rainfall from the time the leading edge of the storm reached Rhode Island Saturday morning until it passed through after midnight.

And the ground was dry, Vallier-Talbot said, due to August rainfall totals that were 2 inches below normal, and pre-Hanna September totals that were trace amounts.

That helped to minimize flooding, as the ground acted like a sponge, and Hanna didn’t wear out its welcome, passing quickly through quickly on its way north.

The only reports of flooding were at Waterman Avenue and Edmond Street in East Providence, several streets in Cranston and an unspecified area in Smithfield.

Flooding was much worse in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where the storm, partly offshore in Rhode Island, made landfall.

In Manchester, N.H., numerous streets and basements were reported flooded, some with up 2 feet of water. Lightning struck a house and started a fire in Holyoke, Mass. In Milford, Mass., a 100-foot section of Stonybrook Road was washed out.

With staff reports from David Scharfenberg

jcastell@projo.com