I have never seen a group of CIOs come closer to devolving into an angry mob as I did when they confronted the conference organizers to demand that the TV signals be unblocked. We needed information. We needed to be connected. For some reason, it couldn't be done instantly. They were trying their best, but it would take some time (hours in fact). We were seething.

More cell phone snippets of news and/or rumors came in: Smoke was rising from the Capital in Washington. A plane crashed near Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh? Why attack Pittsburgh? More planes were still in the air. Would they go after Boston?

That's when I said aloud to no one: "My country's under attack and I'm trapped on a f-----g boat."

David Foote of Foote Partners had reached his wife and was trying to make sure his daughter, who may have been in Manhattan, was safe. His phone battery was dying, but he let me use the last of its juice to call home. No one was there. I left a 10-second voice message for my wife Carolyn. "Call my parents and tell them I'm OK. I hope your brother is alright. I don't know when I can get home."

The TVs were finally liberated and we gathered in the lounges to watch the projection screens. Few one spoke or even looked at each other. The only channel we could get was the BBC News Service. They had no reporters on the scene. There were no images of Rudy Giuliani leading people down the avenues, or of the first responders. We got nothing but a five-second video of smoke pouring from a tower and a body hurtling out the side of the building. It showed over and over. Then for a brief second, we saw the image of ABC's Peter Jennings at his anchor desk, but it was extinguished as the feed cut back to the BBC.