To this day, I know EXACTLY what I was doing. It was about 1.30pm I got home from Europe (based in Europe, fyi), which is 7.30 in NYC, had lunch. After lunch, I went to my room and turned on the radio only to hear the sky above the US was closed. They didn't say why at that moment, so I went to ask my mom. She didn't know either. Instead of going back to my room, I went to the living room, turned on the TV and basically shouted for my mom to come over. We spent the rest of the day glued to the TV watching the second plane hit the tower and the rest of the horror unfold. Up until then, it was the most terrifying experience. I can't imagine how everyone close by felt. :(

I was living in downtown NYC that day - the entire island was filled with dust and silence - I will always remember the smell that permeated the air for weeks - its something I will never forget

I was home on Long Island with my 4 year old son. My other son, who was 6 at the time, was in school. I was exercising on a Nordic Track, watching TV. My sister called me to tell me to put on the news. That's when I saw it all unfold. My mom called me to say she had already heard from one of my brothers, and that he was okay. He was a Captain with the FDNY. My mom couldn't get in touch with my other brother, who was a fireman at Squad 18. My brother also could not reach him. Later on that day we found out he was missing. We cried and hoped and prayed he was in a hospital somewhere or trapped underground, but still alive. There was the media saying that perhaps people might be underneath alive in the subway tunnels. We held onto the smallest glimmer of hope for a few days. It was excruciating. At the beginning of October, they found my brother's body. It brings back so much sadness and helplessness to this day. It's like it happened and year ago, not 16. R.I.P David Halderman.

I remember it. I was a little girl, playing with my dolls, when I suddenly heard my mom speaking to my aunt "jesus, Asia, do you see that? It's happening, it's fcking happening for real". Even in my country, in Europe, it was a big shock. And a beggining of big fear.

I was in a court room waiting for jury duty. There were two men there that had phones that got news. (Remember, no Smart Phone yet.) They kept walking back and forth to each other but the rest of us had no clue. The judge came in around 10:00am and said that we were all to be released "due the events in New York and DC." Everyone, except those 2 businessmen, were confused. Some were just relieved to be let out so early. As the crowd made its way down the stairs to street level there were bailiffs screaming at everyone to power off their phones and keep moving. (Learned later they were afraid an incoming call might trigger a bomb and they weren't taking any chances.) Outside on the court house steps I stopped by a man who had his cell on speaker. Got home in time to see the towers fall. I cried all day.

3000+ people died that day. It was one of the worst single tragedies in US history. It should be commemorated, but we have other problems, too. Nationwide, between 2001 and 2015, 569,220 people have died in traffic accidents. That's over HALF A MILLION people dead. In 2001 along, 42,196 people died on the roads. ... Gun violence claims over 30,000 people a year in this country. Slightly more than half of those are suicides, about 80% of which never would have happened if the victims didn't have access to a gun. ... We have our own home-grown terrorists who have been regularly murdering our citizens for the last 16 years without any real effort made to solve this problem. ... By all means, remember 9/11, but never forget that we have problems of our own making that are causing orders of magnitude more deaths per year than outside terrorists ever have.