Post 10 — Crawling into a tight culvert to remove a blockage
Post 10 (post 10 @ YouTube) is at a clogged culvert running beneath a remote gravel road in a forested area. On one side of the road, there’s a large accumulation of water. On the opposite end of the culvert, it’s noted that there is only a small amount of water trickling through.
He crosses over to the other side of the road, to observe that end of the culvert. What appears to be a custom-made grate device is found there, presumably to help block any large debris that may wash toward the culvert’s opening. This grate device has poles that can be lifted, apparently to assist with clearing blockages. Despite the grate being present, there does appear to be a blockage of some sort, perhaps a small beaver dam, at that end of the culvert.
The grate is tipped out of the way, to give better access to the culvert. While standing outside the pipe, Post 10 uses a four-pronged fork hoe to try to break apart and dislodge the blockage.
This initial work does make some progress at removing the clog, but it still doesn’t fully clear it. Despite it being a relatively small-diameter culvert, Post 10 opts to cross the road so he can crawl into the culvert from the opposite end where there isn’t yet much water flow.
Once there, he removes his thigh waders to avoid flooding the insides of them. Although his socks and jeans are getting soaked, he crawls into the culvert with the hoe. He works on dislodging the clog for a short while, and then backs himself out of the culvert while using the hoe to pull out the branches and other debris.
With the blockage now removed, the water begins to drain much faster. Post 10 moves the clump of branches out of the way of the flowing water.
After returning to the other side of the culvert once more, he replaces the grate structure that he’d moved off to the side earlier. He mentions that he seemed to have inhaled or swallowed some kind of small flying insect while inside the culvert.
A before-and-after comparison is done, demonstrating how much faster the water is flowing through the culvert with the blockage removed.