Search Called Off in Collapsed Parking Garage

After an extensive search with dogs and cameras, rescuers have called off the hunt for more victims in a parking garage that collapsed Friday morning.

CBS Station WCBS correspondent Catherine Brown reports that rescuers say there is no evidence that leads them to believe that anyone is trapped inside this.

There were earlier reports that one, possibly two people may have been trapped inside.

A car was pulled from the rubble at around 11 p.m. yesterday, more than 12 hours after the collapse, but there was no immediate word on whether anyone was inside.

Rescuers using a remote camera and a robot earlier in the day could see one victim in a car on the first level down but couldn't get to the person because of structural instability. They needed to clear debris and shore up the structure.

With the rescue operation over, they are now moving into a secondary search.

A press conference has been announced for Saturday morning.

Two hundred fifty apartments were evacuated as a precaution.

Sifting though tons of concrete, twisted metal and dirt, rescuers were in a race against time to reach victims trapped beneath the rubble of the pancaked parking garage.

"We have one victim in one of the vehicles and it's possible there's a second one in a second vehicle," Hackensack Fire Department Lt. Stephen Lindner said.

Authorities were able to snake a robotic camera to a vehicle one floor beneath the ground and saw a person inside. But the fate of whoever may be trapped two floors below is less certain because they couldn't get the camera close enough to the vehicle.

Given concerns about a secondary collapse, reaching the vehicles is a painstaking process.

"They're doing it by shovel; they're doing it by hand. It's absolutely ... that's the safest way to do it," Lt. Stephen Lindner said.

The rescue has been ongoing since Friday morning when it's believed a glass atrium, attached to the high rise, fell onto the garage.

"Felt like the whole building was collapsing," resident Damian Kazaian told WCBS.

Some residents said they believe a contributing factor to the collapse may have been a water leak in the garage that was never found or fixed.

"Supposedly somebody was coming. They had an idea to remediate it somehow. Never happened, never happened, never happened," resident Al Zayat told WCBS.

Investigators said if the leak went on for months, as residents claim, the garage foundation could have been compromised.

Many New Jerseyans were displaced by the collapse. They are now spending this weekend at least away from their homes.

A scant few residents were briefly escorted in and out to get pets or, in tenant Chris Baldo's case, his pain medicine.

He was transported to this nearby hotel, where he joined dozens of his neighbors. They'll struggle with insurance claims and inconvenience, but they all said they felt blessed they could walk away.

"Worry about everything tomorrow, I guess," Baldo said.