The smell. That’s what I remember most. The smell.

On that day, I was living about 40 miles out from Manhattan, on Long Island’s North Shore. My then-girlfriend (now my lovely wife) had gotten up to head for the office, and she called me saying a plane hit the WTC, and to turn on the TV. I turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. Like every other American, I was glued to the TV that day.

After a couple of hours, I went out side into my yard, and I could already smell it - that acrid odor that occurs when an electrical fire occurs, only more intense. It was a smell I nearly got used to over the coming weeks, even 40 miles away it hung in the air as a reminder of the destruction that had taken place.

Even a month later, when Lower Manhattan was re-opened and my wife and I would go in and have dinner in neighborhood restaurants to try and do our little bit to help them stay afloat, the smell was ever-present.

Even right now, my senses bring it back on cue. That smell still haunts me.