It will probably be the most asked question in America this weekend — where were you when those planes hit the World Trade Center 15 years ago?

I can remember exactly where I was, out covering what I thought was a pretty big radio news story at the time. Fire struck a kitchen at the Leyden Woods apartment complex at around 8:30 that morning. It was doused pretty quickly, but still worthy of a live update.

I dialed up the WHAI control room and got Jay Fidanza, who told me my “exclusive” would have to wait because a plane had just flown into one of New York’s twin towers. I immediately high-tailed it back to the station in time to see a second plane hit the other tower, and I knew instinctively that this would be an event unlike anything we’d experienced.

It’s a decade and a half later, and I still vividly recall the panic I felt in those moments, mostly because I was pretty sure my older sister Kathie worked in one of those buildings. It turned out not to be the case, but she was right next door and saw the first plane hit.

I was actually a little honored to learn later that her first thought was to call and give me the “scoop.” I always figured she would have made a great reporter, based on her tenacity alone, which took her from a small Massachusetts town no one had ever heard of to the top of the food chain of the world’s financial markets.

The rest of that day was a bit of a whirlwind which took me from Greenfield, to Northampton, where I helped co-anchor coverage on WHMP, then back to town, where I found myself covering an impromptu gathering of residents for a speak-out at Beacon Field.

It was one of the more emotional events I’d ever been a part of. People just didn’t seem to know how to process what had happened, which is usually the result when life suddenly takes us in a direction we never expected, leaving us in a place we never imagined being.

It wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory for me, having experienced something similar with the death of my father years earlier. Though completely different circumstances, the shock of the day stirred up a lot of those old feelings, especially since, at that point, I still didn’t know if my sister was among the victims.

Thankfully, she was not, but I will never forget how her voice sounded on my answering machine later that night, hours after she and so many others were forced to escape on foot in a cloud of smoke generated by the fallen rubble of what was once the centerpiece of the New York skyline.

In the days and weeks following the attack, I paid especially close attention to see if our attitudes would change as a nation, especially when you consider what was passing as “news” in those previous months.

The tabloids were obsessed with a missing D.C. intern named Chandra Levy, and speculation was running rampant as to whether her boss, Congressman Gary Condit, had something to do with it. And the phenomenon known as “Bush Derangement Syndrome” was still in its infancy, as people continued to grouse about and question the legitimacy of the 2000 presidential election.

Concerns about the fallout from that disputed election were virtually non-existent. On the contrary, it made for compelling copy as a lot of pundits and opinion-makers got rich fanning the flames of discontent. A lot of those headlines faded following the attack, as people seemed willing to put down their vitriol and pick up the flag in a rare show of national unity, the likes of which hasn’t really been seen since.

That new-found patriotism would soon be eclipsed by a desire for revenge, as the government looked for ways to punch back. We hit Afghanistan, then, for reasons passing understanding, Iraq, two wars fought on the gross national credit card.

In between there came the development of the not-so-aptly named USA PATRIOT Act, which was sold under the premise that certain civil liberties had to be sacrificed to protect us from the “evil-doers” — conveniently forgetting that age-old belief that the only way terrorists truly win is by forcing us to make ourselves less free.

A lot of other dirty water has gone under the bridge since then — war, recession and political upheaval too extensive to chronicle here — but the main result is that, 15 years after the fact, America seems more divided and fearful than ever. We clearly didn’t retain many of the lessons learned that day. If anything, we’re worse off than before, but that doesn’t mean we should give up.

America needs to find a way to use something other than a terrorist attack to come together as one country. Otherwise, we will continue to remain a bunch of angry, jaded individuals for whom democracy has become an arcane concept only existing in history books.

We need to keep trying. We owe it not only to ourselves, but to the memories of the thousands who lost their lives to an act of madness none of us will, or should, ever forget.

Chris Collins, who worked in local radio in a number of capacities, has observed political life in Franklin County for years. He also is a former staff reporter for The Recorder and a Greenfield native.