With the exception of comparatively few outages and isolated wind-related damages, Cranston fared better than many communities in the fast moving storm that whipped the Northeast with hurricane force winds Sunday night and into Monday morning.

As of Tuesday morning, a good 24 hours after the storm hit, 1,500 Cranston customers were still without power, according to National Grid spokesman Ted Kresse. Statewide, he said, 90,000 customers were without power, down from a total of 153,000 in the wake of the storm.

“Our goal is to have the vast majority back by tomorrow [Wednesday] afternoon,” he said of the state. As of Tuesday, 250 Grid crews were in the field addressing trees down on wires and related problems. Of those crews, Kresse said 20 are external to Grid.

More help was scheduled to start arriving early Wednesday morning from Virginia. Kresse said more than 60 five- to six-person crews would be staging operations from the Knight Campus of CCRI.

From the outset of restoration efforts, crews have been dispatched to those sites where they can restore power to the most customers and then returning to do smaller clusters of outages and single homes. The exceptions are what Grid terms as “critical” customers that include hospitals, nursing homes and public safety such as police and fire.

Mayor Allan Fung said that when the storm hit Sunday night around 11 p.m. he got a call from Fire Chief William McKenna, who told him they needed to dispatch crews to start working on damage control and cleanup. Mayor Fung even lost power at his house, forcing him to take a “very cold shower” Monday morning, which he said was just a half hour before the power was restored around 7 a.m.

Chief McKenna said that “quite a few” trees came down during the storm, some of which were on residences, bringing down wires.

According to Director of Public Works Kenneth Mason, the number of trees that came down ended up being around 50.

“We’ve been very busy,” Mason said. “We’ve had three [highway division] crews working some overtime and doing storm cleanup. We also have Northeast Tree Service working as a subcontractor and we’re working in conjunction with the contractor that works with National Grid.”

Mason said that they’ve been taking care of those trees and are still cleaning up the debris caused by the storm across the city, saying that they’re in “mop-up mode” now.

Despite the widespread damage of the storm across the state, Cranston fared better than most in terms of road closures. According to Mason and Fung, the only road closed as of Tuesday was Pippin Orchard Road off Scituate Avenue, which is actually a state road. Mayor Fung said he called the governor’s office to try to get it cleared as soon as possible, and Mason said that both National Grid and the state are currently working on clearing that road.

“All the main roads and secondary roads, other than Pippin Orchard, are open now,” Mason said.

In terms of power restoration, Mayor Fung said that “many people weren’t expecting to get power back until tomorrow [Wednesday], but a lot of them are actually getting back power already today.”

As for schools, Cranston joined a number of school districts around the state in closing Monday. Chief Operating Officer for Cranston schools Ray Votto said the decision was made for a couple of reasons.

“We did not have power in six elementary schools and a couple of buildings had minor leaks that caused minor flooding,” Votto said. “We were also concerned about travel and transportation, the roads were pretty slick and we have 80 buses that run.”

Schools that lost power Monday included Gladstone Elementary, Glen Hills, Stone Hill, Garden City, and the Cranston Area Career and Technical School.

On Tuesday, Cranston schools were all back in session, unlike the bordering cities of Warwick and Providence. Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse made that decision Monday afternoon for all but two schools, Gladstone and Stonehill. That’s because they still didn’t have power back on and, according to Votto, National Grid wasn’t sure if they were going to get to them. Alas, they were able to get both buildings up and running, and school was back in session for all of Cranston on Tuesday.

Cranston certainly felt the effects of the quick but impacting storm overnight Sunday, from the boats in Edgewood to the power lines out in Western Cranston. But all in all, the city was able to weather the storm pretty well compared to its neighbors, and the cleanup of the debris, damaged wires, and fallen trees should be done quickly.