Freezing rain is the hardest weather Elgin gets — not dramatic like a blizzard, just a slow glaze that turns the loading docks off Big Timber Road into glass. Clauss Brothers, Inc. reads those forecasts closely, because ice wants treating before it forms rather than after. Trucks go out ahead of the front, salt down, plows ready for whatever falls behind it, so by shift change the aprons and walkways are gray and gritty underfoot. There is a quiet pride in a lot where nobody went down. Snow and ice work throughout Elgin, Hampshire, Gilberts and Hoffman Estates.