Every big storm Elgin gets is announced days out, tracking down from the northwest, and the waiting is its own part of the job. Great Lakes Snow Systems spends that stretch loading salt, checking cutting edges and setting the order of the route so the earliest openings get cleared first. Then the night runs long — headlights, wipers, the radio low, lot after lot going from white to black. Morning arrives and the town moves as though nothing happened, which is more or less the goal. Plowing, salting and walkway clearing in Elgin, Hoffman Estates, South Elgin and Bartlett.