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PHOTOS: Drone captures work to remove chemicals from Applegate Lane house

After months of planning and community meetings, work started this week to remove the dangerous substances.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Work is underway on the most talked-about home on Applegate Lane in Louisville, and now we're getting our first look at the progress being made to remove dangerous chemicals from the property.

Louisville Metro Emergency Services released a batch of drone photos Thursday that show workers removing numerous containers of chemicals and explosive materials from the home located at 6213 Applegate in Highview. The adjacent home also contains these chemicals and is part of the ongoing Environmental Protection Agency project to remove them.

Credit: Louisville Metro Emergency Services
Workers are working to remove dangerous chemicals from two homes on Applegate Lane in Louisville. | Oct. 19, 2023

After three months of meetings and planning, the EPA began demolition work this week. 

Applegate is blocked off to traffic and littered with heavy machinery. To protect the neighborhood, a barricade of shipping containers surrounds the home.

Credit: Louisville Metro Emergency Services
Crews demolish a garage located on the Applegate Lane property. | Oct. 19, 2023

A Nicholasville, Kentucky company, CMC Environmental Services, is taking the home apart piece by piece.

"At the end of the day, it's going to be a dismantled house in a dumpster that will be hauled off," Highview Metro Councilmember Jeff Hudson said. "When the EPA pulls out of here, it'll be an empty lot that has been graded and sowed with grass seed." 

Credit: Louisville Metro Emergency Services
Crews demolish a garage located on the Applegate Lane property. | Oct. 19, 2023

The owner of the home, 53-year-old Marc Hibel, is charged with first-degree burglary, second-degree burglary and wanton endangerment charges. The city calls this a hoarding situation, and says Hibel has been in possession of these chemicals for years.

Hibel is accused of squatting in the adjacent house following the death of the owner.

The city initially planned to conduct a controlled burn of the structures, but later scrapped those plans in favor of the current approach.

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