In February the ice out on Peoria Lake groans and the wind comes down the channel with nothing kind in it. River City Winter Works keeps the night shift then — plowing downtown lots and parking decks, stacking snow where it won't block a sightline, scraping ramps clean, shoveling entries and salting steps before the cold sets a glaze at midnight. Bridge lights hang out over the black water while the loader beeps and swings around. A storm here can leave four inches by supper and eight more by three in the morning, so the answer is simply to stay with it. Dawn comes gray, the pavement bare, and the city opens on time.