Shocking firsthand footage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is going viral once again, and it remains as powerful and chilling today as it did 15 years ago.
The visceral video is one of the most historic accounts of the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, and it has resurfaced today and is currently trending on Reddit just months ahead of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The initially private video was filmed by a college student from a nearby NYU dormitory, as the unwitting onlooker became a major part of documenting the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
The camera person, Caroline Dries, went on to become a TV writer and producer for shows including Smallville, Melrose Place, and The Vampire Diaries.
On September 11, New York University student Caroline Dries and her roommate, Megan, awoke at 8.46am to the sound of what they believed to be an explosion.
Dries began filming the events from her 32nd floor room at 200 Water Street when she spotted smoke coming from the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
As the footage unfolds, the confusion of what is happening can be heard, as Caroline and Megan speculate as to what is happening, while Megan frantically explains the situation to her mother over the phone.
It is only when the South Tower was attacked at 9.03am that the two women realised they were witnessing a terrorist attack and evacuated the building. However, feeling even less safe on the street, the pair later returned to their dormitory and watched in horror as the South Tower collapsed at 9.59am.
Speaking to CNN in 2011, Dries said:
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.
It took kind of ten years for me to understand why this footage is special. People, I think, want to remember the details clearly and to hold onto it because they know how significant it was. Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have not filmed it — to just have run and let time kind of erase all the details and it would have gone a little faster.
Dries speaks more about the experience and you can see more of her footage from that fateful day in that CNN documentary here:
This comes just days after it was revealed that President Obama could declassify and release a controversial top secret government document about the 9/11 attacks within the next couple of months.
