Wow. I cannot imagine seeing it first hand like that. It was hard on TV, but that had to be truly awful- in every sense of the word.
Honestly i never thought of it as an awful day for me personally. I thought of one of my friends stories from that day that was in a building across the street and watched people jump from the windows his day may have been awful. From my view uptown at work i was able to see the smoke but not the building directly from obstructed views. On my way home from work on the F train when it went above ground at the Smith-9st station that’s where i get my best view. That was around 11:30 - 12:30 i don’t recall the time that well. There was still a huge cloud around downtown. The dust cloud was there even the next morning.
if i can figure out how to cut a section of video off a DVD i will one day post my video of 9/11.