CHARLOTTE -- On September 11, 2001, Mark Vitner was at the Marriott Hotel in New York City for a conference on the global economy. The hotel sat at the foot of the Twin Towers.
"I was attending a conference in a meeting room, in the middle or an early part of the presentation," said Vitner, a Wells Fargo economist in Charlotte.
At 8:46 a.m., a loud noise interrupted the speaker.
"Then a very loud explosion shook the building violently," Vitner said. "And that's when we knew that something horrible had happened. You didn't know what."
The group immediately went to the hotel lobby, which opened up to the North Tower.
"You couldn't get out for 15, 20 minutes because there was debris coming down," Vitner said. "There was a fireman who would look up and see if it was safe and then tell you to run."
Then, at 9:03 a.m., the South Tower was struck.
"Those moments after that second plane hit, the look in people's eyes is something you'll never forget because people who had been putting up a brave fron were suddenly scared," Vitner said.
Vitner was able to call his wife to let her know he was ok. She was pregnant at the time with their first child. His children obviously have no memory of that day, but it's stayed with Vitner.
"It's an experience you always carry with you," he said.
On the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks this Sunday, Vitner will be going to the same conference he was at in New York City when the towers came down.
"Only it's being held in Atlanta as opposed to New York."
Vitner says they'll have a brief ceremony, but mostly stick to the routine, illustrating a way of life no terrorist can destroy.
"It's the freedoms that we have, the ability to create what we create in America," Vitner said. "You can't destroy that by destroying a building."