UPDATE, June 12: With no signs of life coming from the rubble that was the Bartow Power Plant's boiler plant building, Progress Energy is now describing the effort at the site of the collapsed building in St. Petersburg, Fla., as a "recovery" effort. The company posted the following on its Twitter page on Saturday, June 11. "Search in St. Pete is moving from rescue to recovery. We really appreciate the hard work of the rescue squads. Thoughts still w/ the family." An updated story on the shift to recovery mode, from the St. Petersburg Times, can be found here.

June 11: Crews are seeking to rescue a welder who became trapped in a collapsed Progress Energy building that was being prepared for demolition. The collapse of the utility's seven-story boiler plant building occurred Thursday evening, just shortly before the demolition contractor was set to bring down the structure. (See Tampabay.com video here.)

Following is an excerpt from a June 10 Progress Energy press release:


The trapped contract worker, an employee of Buffalo, NY-based Frontier Industrial Corporation, was the only person in the building at the time of the collapse. A total of 21 Progress Energy employees and contractors were at the site when the accident occurred.


At approximately 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, June 9, a contract worker  involved in the dismantlement of a building at Progress Energy Florida’s retired Paul L. Bartow Power Plant in St. Petersburg was trapped when the building he was working in collapsed unexpectedly. As of 10:30 p.m., the condition of the worker was unknown.


The group had been working to dismantle the plant’s retired Number 3 boiler. The boiler section was a 180-foot structure with a 10,000 square foot base, which accounted for approximately 25 percent of the overall plant structure. This was the first boiler dismantlement to be performed as part of the project.


At the time of the accident, the crew was preparing for a controlled collapse, which was scheduled to occur at around 8:30 p.m. this evening.


“Our thoughts and prayers are with the gentleman trapped in this terrible accident and his family,” said David Sorrick, vice president of power generation for Progress Energy Florida. “At this time we are solely focused on assisting first responders in their rescue effort.”


Progress Energy has been working with contractors to dismantle the Bartow steam plant following the 2009 construction of four on-site, gas/oil-fired combustion turbines and one steam turbine. Once the 1,200-megawatt combined-cycle plant came online, the use of the Bartow steam plant was no longer economically feasible.


The missing worker was identified as Clark White, 65, an employee of Frontier Industrial Corp., Buffalo, N.Y. The St. Petersburg Times reports that witnesses, including White's son, Travis White, who was working in the building at the time, said the trapped welder sensed something was wrong and warned others, before the collapse, to evacuate the structure immediately.

A newswire report, via the Tampa Tribune, can be found here. Again, a video, from the St. Petersburg Times' website, Tampabay.com, can be found here.