SAN DIEGO — It would begin with a worldwide virus outbreak that had cities under quarantine, emergency workers overwhelmed and government agencies unable to cope. It would be compounded by cyberterror attacks that cut off power, phones and Internet access. Such was the simulated crisis that teams from the Pentagon, nongovernmental agencies and several dozen technology companies set out to handle in a five-day exercise this month that was meant to showcase and test a new set of digital tools for responding to disaster. The limitations of even the latest technology were made apparent in the simulation, when an effort to restore communications by setting up wireless networks resulted in a three-day data traffic jam. Yet the problems encountered in the training effort, named Strong Angel III, failed to discourage the participants, a diverse group of more than 800 ‘first responders,’ military officers and software and wireless network experts – some from rivals like Microsoft and Google, working side by side. ‘My view is that the value of Strong Angel is 70 percent in the social networks that will be created,’ said the organizer, Eric Rasmussen, a Navy surgeon and veteran of relief efforts on several […]