TENNESSEE/NORTH CAROLINA BORDER (WVLT) -- They won't let you close enough to see it. Only hear it.

With debris flying 200 yards, we couldn't get near the blast, aimed to remove large boulders hanging from the top of the 150-foot slide that closed I-40 at the Tennessee/North Carolina border in both directions.

"Hopefully move all of that mess down here into the roadway then we'll use that material, we're going to stick it back up and create a ramp where we can get back up to the top of it," said Rich Styles of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Earlier, the dangerous job of filling holes with dynamite and ammonium nitrate, handled by workers with both explosives and rock climbing experience.

Styles said "They're actually carrying explosives up there and placing it in crevices and some drill holes that were drilled yesterday."

About a thousand pounds of explosives were used to essentially make big rocks into little rocks, so equipment you see behind me can haul it all away.

Blasting the rock began Tuesday, as the highway's not set to re-open for at least three months. It can't come soon enough for Harold Cates.

"25 - 70 right into Asheville."

Cates owns the Downtown Hartford Citgo on I-40, about two miles west of the rock slide. The detour is practically killing his business.

"It's 100 percent off on truck business. There's just no trucks through here now," Cate's told WVLT. "There's usually 25-30 trucks here every night and now there's none here. Come in in the morning, it's empty."

And for motorists, a major headache.

"I went down 40 East 'till it stops. I turned around like where the heck am I going now? " said motorist Jason Bauer.