Tropical Storm Hanna is gone, and so are the wind, rain and humidity it chased up the coast.

The storm left in its wake fallen trees, downed wires, power outages 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 superintendent Ronald Leitao said this morning. “If it 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 coast, 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 Pawtucket bore the brunt of the storm between 11 p.m. and 2 p.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 big utility company.

Crews worked through the night, and the number 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.

Graves said National Grid crews are still at work, but power is being restored more slowly now that most of the big feeder lines are back in service and many smaller lines still down.

“We’re down to individual outages. We do expect everyone will have service by this evening,” he said. Winds reached gale force velocity. At Conimicut Point 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 metereologist in Taunton, Mass.

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

But 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 Sunday.

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 to sop up rainfall, and Hanna didn’t stall or turn into a long-duration storm.

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

Flooding was much worse, In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where the storm, party offshore in Rhode Island, made landfall. In Manchester, N.H., numerous streets and basements were reported flooded, some with up two feet of water. Lightning struck a house and started a fire in Holyoke, Mass. In Milford, Mass., a 100-foot section of Stonybrook Road washed out.