From Ground Zero to the Jupiter Lighthouse: One Firefighter’s 9/11 Story

Twenty-five years ago today, Chris McKnight was supposed to be on vacation.

Instead, the longtime New York City firefighter found himself responding to one of the darkest days in American history.

McKnight had spent more than two decades with the FDNY and was captain of Engine 238 in Brooklyn. He had already responded to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was beginning a week off at his Long Island home when news of the attacks reached him. He went back to work.

By the end of that day, 343 members of the FDNY were gone.

Among them was Lt. Glenn Wilkinson of Engine 238, McKnight's partner and fellow firefighter.The loss stayed with McKnight.

After 23 years with the FDNY, he retired about a year after the attacks. He and his family decided they needed a change from New York and eventually chose Jupiter, where his wife had a college friend.

They bought a home off Indiantown Road and began building a new life in South Florida.

But retirement wasn't quite enough for McKnight.

Eventually, another kind of public service found him — at one of Jupiter's most recognizable landmarks.

The Loxahatchee River Historical Society was looking for a co-director for the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. McKnight took the job and began caring for the historic lighthouse and the grounds around it.

It was a remarkable transition: from leading firefighters through smoke and darkness in New York to caring for a beacon designed to guide people safely through the night in Jupiter.

And he never forgot the firefighters who didn't come home.

In his Jupiter home, McKnight kept a framed poster containing photographs of the firefighters killed on September 11. Years later, he could still remember individual stories and personalities behind many of those faces.

The firefighters, he said, remained at the front of his mind.

For McKnight, moving to Jupiter wasn't about forgetting September 11.

It was about learning how to carry those memories while continuing to live.

Today, as Jupiter and communities across the country mark 25 years since the attacks, his story is a reminder that the history of September 11 isn't confined to New York, Washington or Pennsylvania.

Some of the people who experienced that day eventually became our neighbors.

And one of them found a new beginning beneath the light of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse.

Never forget. September 11, 2001.