Cahokia Street Department

About Cahokia Street Department

Down on the American Bottom the ground lies flat as poured water, and weather off the Mississippi arrives wet and heavy and all at once. Cahokia Street Department works the snow here — plowing lots and access drives, opening entrances ahead of the shift change, salting the walks that ice first in the river damp. Sauget runs on trucks and early hours, and a lot that is not cleared by five is a lot nobody can use. Across the water the downtown lights hang above the levee while the blade keeps making its long straight passes underneath them. By sunup the blacktop is black again and the day's traffic never has to think about it.