By James Windell
Brandon Hinz will never forget where he was and what he was doing on the morning of September 11, 2001.
“I was a mechanic at the time and was listening to a New York-based radio show,” Hinz, the Executive Director of the South Haven Area Emergency Services (SHAES), recalls. “The host started discussing how they were hearing reports that one of the World Trade Center towers was on fire. It caught my attention, so I started listening closer, and eventually they ceased the broadcast as reports started coming in that it was possibly a terrorist attack.”
Hinz had been working for SHAES for three years by that time as a paid on-call firefighter.
“As rescue efforts started ramping up, fire departments across the nation were asked to provide assistance, if possible,” Hinz remembers. “We had recently been trained in confined-space operations, a skill set that they were requesting at Ground Zero. Chief Van Wynen asked any of us if we were willing to help if needed and I don’t think there was one of us that didn’t sign up.”
SHAES, along with the City of South Haven, and the South Haven Police Department are holding a remembrance ceremony on Friday, September 11, 2026, to honor the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attack.
This ceremony will be in remembrance of those that lost their lives that day and those that lost their lives after 9/11 for health reasons due to working at Ground Zero. Taking part in the ceremony will be guest speakers, honor guards, and SHAES staff doing a stair climb.
For Hinz, the ceremony has a personal significance.
“The fire service is a family,” Hinz says. “I think about those firefighters who returned to their stations that day, only to see their co-worker and family member’s gear sitting there, their personal belongings, maybe even a half-filled cup of coffee that would never be finished. One minute that person was part of the family, and the next they were gone. And behind every one of those firefighters was another family, a husband, wife, children, parents, and friends who lost someone they loved.”
The community is invited to attend the ceremony, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Huron Street Pavilion and will conclude with the wreath-laying ceremony at approximately 9:30 a.m. at the Firefighter’s Memorial on the downtown island along Phoenix Street.
The program will also include the tolling of bells and moments of silence recognizing the events of September 11. The South Haven High School Band will perform, and the SHAES Honor Guard will present colors during the ceremony. Firefighters also will take part in a 9/11 memorial stair climb in honor of the 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who perished while climbing the 110 stories of the Twin Towers on September 11th.
Hinz says that firemen know the risks and they accept them, but that neither he nor any other firemen ever expect to lose 343 members of their own family in one day.
“I can guarantee you that if each one of those public servants had been given one more chance, they would have made the same choice,” Hinz says. “They would have gone back in. They would have chosen to be heroes, because that is who they were.”
