Gutter Masters

About Gutter Masters

Du Quoin knows how to handle a crowd, with the fairgrounds on the south edge filling every summer and emptying again, but in January it is a quiet Perry County town with a lot of pavement to keep clear. Gutter Masters works those winters, plowing driveways and lots when a southern Illinois storm swings up out of the Ozarks and drops its wet, heavy snow all at once. That snow is nothing like the dry stuff up north; it packs, it refreezes, and it has to be moved while it can still be moved. Blade down early, salt across the shaded strips and the low spots that hold water, then back around when the wind shifts. A cleared drive on a gray Du Quoin morning is a small, complete piece of work.