At three in the morning the wind arrives off Lake Michigan out of the northeast, and Zion — flat and open, a couple of miles of lake plain between the water and the fields — takes the full width of it. Doetsch Contractors is out in that: plow down, driveways and lots pushed back to the pavement, sidewalks cleared, salt spread ahead of the refreeze. The measure of a night like that is simple. Somebody steps outside at six, finds black asphalt where the drift should have been, and gets where they're going without thinking about it once. Snow this near the water can keep falling long after the radar calls it finished, which is why the route gets run a second time.