HOLLDAY, Utah — Now reduced to rubble, Tuesday morning was the last time Teri Wojcik saw her Holladay home of the past 51 years.
"What I have is a hole in the ground," she said Friday.
Wojcik began cleaning her home recently after her husband, Leonard, a retired chemist at the University of Utah, passed away in January.
Video below shows what was left of the Holladay home after detonations:
"Talked about cleaning it up and all that kind of stuff, but it wasn't supposed to be catastrophic," Wojcik said.
She started working in the basement, which she said was the domain of her husband. Because she knew chemicals were down in that area of the house, she called the health department for help.
That's when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency got involved.
"...and then they called in the bomb squad because of the ether, and the bomb squad was checking around making sure everything was okay, and they found the dynamite," recalled Wojcik. "They said it was sweating, which means that its really unstable. So they found 2 cases."
Wojcik says her husband had forgotten about keeping dynamite in their home and had only heard rumors that it might have been there.
"He had got it from his dad when his dad died 40 years ago and cleaned out his garage, his barn. And back in those days, dynamite was cheap. You just toss a stick at a stump and cleared your land. Not like now," she said.
Neighbors in the homes closest to Teri's were kept out of their residences all day Tuesday and early Wednesday morning, while several other homes were evacuated as crews performed controlled detonations to get rid of the dynamite.
VIDEO: Footage from a resident's security camera shows explosion lighting up the night sky
Even with the precautions, a few homes closest to the eventual blast were damaged.
"I'm sorry, it wasn't intended," Wojcik pleaded. "The EPA and the bomb squad was doing all the steps proper. It just was not expected."
Days later, Teri is trying to sort out insurance matters and keep going after losing her husband and home within months.
"Take it step-by-step," she said. "The phrase that came up the other day, the firemen were talking about ashes, and I said, 'Yeah, out of the ashes comes a phoenix.'"
Wojcik says she is overwhelmed by all the support she has received this week.
"It's been amazing. All of a sudden I'm getting texts from people I barely know, and some from complete strangers, about what can we do to help," she shared. "And I'm just overwhelmed with that because I am kinda glassy eyed at this point."
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Wojcik after being left with practically nothing.
