Surviving Japan's Search and Rescue
BLITZER: We'll get back to the breaking news in Libya, NATO. What are they going to do? We'll be standing by to hear from the NATO secretary-general, as well as the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Much more on that coming up. Other important news we're watching though right now, including inside Japan. Workers are back inside Japan's crippled nuclear power plant a day after black smoke forced an evacuation. They're pressing on with the dangerous job of trying to stop more radiation from leaking out of the plant. New tests today show radioactive iodine levels in Tokyo's tap water have dropped back to levels considered safe for babies. Authorities had already started handing out bottled water to tens of thousands of parents in the area. Fears about radiation exposure though still remain high. Japanese officials have expanded restrictions on food shipments after 12 types of vegetables were found to have radioactive levels higher than the legal limit. Our CNN crew has experienced some of the dangers in the quake zone and the tsunami zone firsthand. We're talking about Brian Todd. He's back with us, safe and sound, after his travels in Japan with a search and rescue crew from Virginia. Brian was there with his producer and his photographer. Quite an experience, Brian?</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was, Wolf. I think what stands out as a memory of the trip is the images of just kind of standing in the middle of the rubble. The pictures that we sat back are amazing. But to stand there in the middle of it all and look around at the complete devastation that you're standing in, and realize the full force of the water and what it must be like to stand there or been even a little bit on higher ground and watch everything just get swept away, that was just an amazing sensation. Also, to look at the people coming back and picking through houses of theirs that just weren't even there anymore and looking for any remnants of their lives. And you wonder, why are they doing that? There's nothing there really of any value anymore. One of the rescuers told me that it really is almost a way of them preventing themselves from going insane, just to try to find some kind of remnant of their past lives in order to start anew. Just the images of that, we'll never forget that.</s>BLITZER: Heartbreaking stuff. What were the biggest challenges of covering a disaster like this?</s>TODD: Well, I'll tell you, just, you know, even walking, like from here to that camera, 10, 15 feet was a huge challenges. I mean, just to sift through the rubble and to kind of -- I'm kind of following one of the rescuers stepping over something -- to try to bring that home to viewers, I actually got a DV-cam, and I kind of filmed myself trying to walk about 15 feet. And we'll show a clip of that right now.</s>TODD: Part of the complication is just walking from one place to another. See this area behind me right here? It's just a few feet away, but I can't walk 15 feet, 20 feet without having to just navigate through some -- well, I'm going to take you through it. I have got to go down here, and the camera is probably going all over the place because I'm down into a ravine of debris. I have got to step this way and kind of come up here, watch my balance. Everything is slippery, of course, because it's snowing. Now I'm here. And now I can kind of walk.</s>TODD: Just barely. I mean, it was a real challenge to do that. Another challenge of transmission was our satellite signal. We used a machine called a BGAN, which is essentially a satellite/Internet terminal which allows you to transmit your signal. We've got a picture of it there. That had to be outside, it had to be pointing in a certain direction. And it costs about $16 a minute. So that was a technical challenge. Another thing was the MRE. I've got a little packet to eat.</s>BLITZER: Meal Ready to Eat.</s>TODD: Meal Ready to Eat. You're eating what the soldiers eat in wartime. We were eating this every day for about eight days. And my producer, Dougal McConnell (ph), kind of demonstrated how that worked. We can show you a clip of that.</s>CNN PRODUCER: These are the rescuers from L.A. and Fairfax County that CNN has been embedded with. Literally embedded with. You can see here is the standard issue sleeping bag and cot that some of these folks have been in. Also standard issue, Meals Ready to Eat. That's right, meals in a pouch. Just add water, heat them up, and you're ready to go.</s>TODD: And I have to say about Dougal (ph) and our photojournalist, Doug Shantz (ph), two of the most courageous guys I've ever worked with. They never flinched, never complained, never said that we should not go into a place where it might be too dangerous. I frankly didn't deserve these guys. They were the ones who made the story.</s>BLITZER: Well, you were blessed to have them. We were blessed to have all three of you working for CNN. You guys did a great job, and we really appreciate it.</s>TODD: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: Brian, thanks very much.</s>TODD: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: We'll go back to the breaking news on Libya. There are dramatic developments in the works. Stand by. We'll be right back.