Newsday.com-911

September 5, 2006

Late on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, Wendell S. Storms and his wife left their Levittown home to drive to Jones Beach. They had taken this short trip a thousand times before on clear days, and always when they did, they looked west, toward New York City.

"On a really good day from the beach you could see the Twin Towers and even the Empire State Building," Storms said. "We wanted to be there that horrible day just to see what we could see. When we got to the park, an attendant told us to turn around, that they didn't want anybody on the beach.

"We came back up the Wantagh Parkway and pulled over by the last bridge. Many cars had stopped. People were standing on the grass ... looking west 30 miles towards the city ... and seeing the sun setting and a black column of smoke rising up into the sky. It was the fires burning where the towers had stood. Some people were crying.

"I had a camera with me and a full roll of film. I quickly ran off 20 pictures."

Newsday.com is creating a photo gallery of pictures taken on Sept. 11, 2001, and pictures of items collected from Ground Zero. To contribute, go to newsday.com/911 and upload a picture, a description of the person or item and what the image means to you. You also can view one of Storms' photographs, and a poem he wrote called "Hope."

Share your pictures here.