JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Chris Hogan remembers the moment clearly. A cloud of dust rising on a Tuesday morning he described as beautiful \u2014 and a world that was about to change forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing that cloud of dust on a beautiful Tuesday morning was something nobody ever expected,\u201d Hogan said.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years ago, Hogan was working as a dispatcher at the City of Newark University Hospital in New Jersey when New York City came under attack on Sept. 11, 2001. News4JAX anchor Jenese Harris sat down with Hogan for a one-on-one conversation about a day he will never forget.<\/p>\n
\u2018One of the scariest experiences\u2019<\/p>\n
When asked what it was like to realize the country was under attack, Hogan didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was one of the scariest experiences that any of us ever had and witnessed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dispatchers like Hogan had no option to stop. Even as trauma and loss mounted in the days and weeks that followed, they kept working \u2014 answering calls, coordinating help, keeping others safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could see what was happening on the radio,\u201d Hogan recalled. \u201cSeeing the people on the transit trains, seeing them covered in dust. Looking at the news and seeing all of those hospitals in Manhattan waiting for patients that never came because people were escaping from New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walking into Ground Zero<\/p>\n
On Sept. 16, 2001, Hogan traveled to Ground Zero to assist with recovery efforts \u2014 a moment he described as unreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo come through the Holland Tunnel, that was cleared by the New Jersey State Police, and coming out of the tunnel and seeing nobody \u2014 there was no traffic, heavily guarded,\u201d he said. \u201cThe smell, the devastation, just seeing people walk around, the stares.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sept. 11 attacks physically impacted New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. But for Hogan, the memories remain vivid to this day.<\/p>\n
Paying it forward in Jacksonville<\/p>\n
Since 2001, Hogan and his family moved to Florida. He now serves as a paramedic and dispatch engineer with JFRD\u2019s Gemma Auxiliary and teaches for an Emergency Medical Responder training program \u2014 preparing a new generation of first responders for whatever may come.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was zero hesitation,\u201d Hogan said. \u201cThere was no regard for our own personal safety. We knew the risk, we knew them, and it wasn\u2019t that we didn\u2019t care \u2014 we didn\u2019t feel like we had a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it a lot. We just knew that\u2019s where we had to be. We had to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new report from New York City says many people were exposed to toxins while helping others after the attack. Several of Hogan\u2019s friends have died over the years. He has been a dispatcher since 1987.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Chris Hogan remembers the moment clearly. A cloud of dust rising on a Tuesday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[51700,116,118,117,158237],"class_list":["post-399885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-9-11","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-september-11th"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}