Search for Missing Worker at Collapsed Power Plant Building Continues

ST. PETERSBURG - The search for a missing worker at the Progress Energy power plant on Weedon Island entered a second night Friday, with rescuers carefully moving mounds of concrete at a collapsed building to find the 65-year-old contractor.

assisted St. Petersburg's rescuers in the effort to save the trapped worker. 

A seven-story abandoned building that was being taken down crumbled into pieces on Thursday night. Clark White, a demolition worker from West Virginia, was identified as the worker trapped inside, according to  TBO.com. White, a welder, was working on the building's first floor, when the accident occurred.

The trapped contract worker is an employee of Buffalo, NY-based Frontier Industrial Corp., according to Progress Energy. White was the only person in the building at the time of the collapse, the company said.

A total of 21 Progress Energy employees and contractors were at the site when the accident occurred.

The group had been working to dismantle the plant’s retired No. 3 boiler. The boiler section was a 180-foot structure with a 10,000-square-foot base. This was the first boiler dismantlement to be performed as part of the project.

The crew was preparing for a "controlled collapse" at 8:30 p.m., when the buiding crumbled.

The St. Petersburg Fire Department reported that there are 25 to 30 rescuers on a rotating schedule working with search dogs looking for White.

Assisting the SPFD are rescuers from Clearwater, Largo, Hillsborough and Florida Task Force 2.

Rescuers have divided the area into 20-foot-by-20-foot grids, and are removing layers of concrete debris, said Lt. Joel Granata, Deputy Fire Marshal of the SPFD.

Granata said workers are conducting a "methodical" search for the trapped worker, with the hope he may still be alive. They remove debris by hand in targeted areas where it is believed that the worker may be trapped.

Progress Energy provided heavy equipment and a plant engineer to help
rescuers. Cameras and listening devices have been placed at the site.

On Friday night, a media staging area set up just ouside the plant was filled with satellite trucks; reporters and camera crews were kept at a distance from the site of the collapsed building.