A video of the 9/11 terrorist attacks filmed by a college student spikes in popularity on the anniversary of the tragedy every year.
The visceral video shows the firsthand experience of a group of young onlookers as they try to comprehend the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Caroline Dries was a student at New York University when she filmed the footage from her room at 200 Water Street.
Dries and her roommate were woken up at 8:46 a.m. by what she thought was an explosion.
When they spotted smoke coming from the World Trade Center, Dries started filming.
The two girls can be heard speculating as to what is happening while Megan tries to explain the situation to her mother over the phone.
When the South Tower was attacked at 9:03 a.m., the two girls realized it was a terrorist attack and evacuated their building.
But they soon returned, after they felt even less safe on the street.
"I just remember feeling, 'I don't know what to do.' That feeling of being so vulnerable was so overwhelming; and so, we ran out of the apartment, took the elevator down to the street, and it was just kind of pandemonium with no one knowing what [was] happening," Dries told CNN in 2011.
The camera was filming once again when the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m.
16 Years Later
Today, on September 11, 2017, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump observed the anniversary of the attacks with a moment of silence at the White House.Workers at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia began the day with the unfurling of the American flag to mark the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
In New York City, Wall Street traders and others held a moment of silence to remember victims, bowing their heads at the toll of a bell.
A ceremony will take place at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, where mourners gather as they have every year since the attack, for the annual reading of victims' names from both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day when four jetliners were hijacked by militants from al Qaeda. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers, another hijacked plane plowed into the Pentagon, and a fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
They will also observe a citywide moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower, with a second pause at 9:03 a.m. when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
Further moments of silence will be observed at 9:37 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon; at 9:59 a.m. when the South Tower fell; at 10:03 a.m. when United Flight 93 hit the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and at 10:28 a.m., when the North Tower collapsed.
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks and a U.S.-led war in Afghanistan followed.
U.S. forces killed bin Laden in May 2011 in a surprise raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, ending a nearly 10-year hunt for the al Qaeda leader.