12-metre tree root pulled from B.C. storm drain

When a storm drain backed up in Osoyoos, B.C., over the weekend, a 12-metre tree root was the last thing crews expected to find.

"We just wrestled that anaconda out of there, two hours, one inch at a time" said Grant McCulloch, property manager of Village on the Lake, a condominium complex on Lakeshore Drive.

McCulloch said the area backed up with water after a recent heavy rainfall and he thought the drain might have been clogged with sand or a dead animal.

When crews realized it was a willow tree root, he says everyone was shocked at the size.

The two-hour job was "exhausting," he said.

12-metre 'anaconda' tree root pulled from storm drain

7 years ago

Duration 0:32

It took crews two hours to remove a giant, 230-kg willow root from a storm drain in Osoyoos, B.C.

'Holy cow'

"I was just dumbfounded. It just kept coming and coming. All three of us just went 'holy cow.'"

"It looks almost alien or something, it was just really bizarre."

Plumber David Wilchynski says he's been in the business for 35 years and has never "seen anything quite so Jurassic."

"That thing is just incredible," he said. "I call it the root of all evil."

'Tug of war' 

Wilchynski said one worker jumped into the drain to hack at the root with a crowbar while the "two guys up top were playing tug of war."

He said the root was about 20 centimetres in diameter — almost the same width as the drain — and weighed at least 226 kilograms.

Wilchynski said the root was connected to two nearby weeping willow trees which have also caused sidewalks to buckle.

The city has been contacted to have the trees removed.

With files from CBC's Brady Strachan