Changed by 9/11: Growing Up After the Attacks

Kasey Fierros can still remember the words that came over her Florida school's loudspeakers a decade ago.

"Teachers, turn on your televisions."

Fierros, 10-years-old at the time, watched with her friends in a classroom in Niceville, Fla. as the second plane collided with the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11.

"It took me about two days to realize what really happened," Fierros said. "Looking back then, I think I really would rather have been shielded more."

Fierros, who now works at the Hyatt Place East End in downtown Riverhead, said the terror attacks of 9/11 put a strain on her family of Air Force servicemen, as her brother served overseas as a mechanic soon after.

"Watching my father well up in tears," she said, "it's just something you're not used to."

Even worse, she said, was her change in mindset. Now, the thought of a possible danger lurks in her mind.

"I can't go on [a plane] without thinking... you know?" she said. "Today there was a bag outside. Before 9/11 you would never thing anything of a bag sitting on the street. But we had people come in and tell us about it."

Still, Fierros is proud of how New York has rebuilt from the ruins of the attack, and how residents 10 years later still share a sense of unity.

"Now that I live here in New York, and I see them rebuild it... it makes you really think how far we've come from 10 years ago," she said. "It's not just on 9/11 that you see people come together. That's the silver lining of a bad situation."