Chances are last year at this time, you were scrambling to get a generator, or calling relatives to see if the family could move over there for a bit. As with many other communities around, Shrewsbury and Grafton were slammed pretty hard, with half of Grafton's National Grid customers losing power and Shrewsbury's SELCO responding to outages for two days.

Irene hit the edge of North Carolina on Aug. 27, 2011, as a Category 1 hurricane, according to this article in the Huffington Post. It was the first of its kind to hit land since Ike two years earlier, and most of the East Coast felt its effects, with 2.3 million under mandatory evacuation orders. 

Patch MetroWest covered Irene through pictures, stories and a live blog that spanned for days.

And Patch readers submitted photos from before, during and especially the aftermath of the hurricane, which were organized into a gallery.

Massachusetts, Vermont and New Jersey felt the most severe impacts from the storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.The National Hurricane Center reports that 49 people were killed as a direct result of the storm, 41 of them in the United States, as reported in the Huffington Post. The damage totaled $15 billion.

In Shrewsbury, SELCO restored most power by the next day.

For Grafton residents, the major concern proved to be the loss of power.

During Irene, more than 3,200 residents lost power in Grafton; many were out for days. 

Attorney General Martha Coakley's office announced in late July it is fining National Grid with a $16 million fine because of its handling, or mishandling, of the tropical storm Irene in August and the snowstorm last October, according to the Worcester Business Journal.

What do you remember about Hurricane Irene? Did the storm force you to buy a generator? How long were you without power? Are you more equipped should another massive weather pattern be headed to your property?

Share your memories of Irene, other storms, and the response in our comments section below.