Fitchburg is built on hills, so every storm is also a grade problem — streets falling away toward the Nashua River, driveways pitched hard off the road. Plowguys of Fitchburg works those angles: pushing uphill where it has to go, placing snow where it won't slide back by morning, opening walks so the brick blocks along the river are reachable again. Weather coming over Wachusett tends to drop an extra inch or two on this side of the hills, and the routes start early because of it. None of it is glamorous, and all of it matters at six a.m. when somebody has to be at work. A cleared drive on a steep street is a small piece of engineering, and it's the part worth getting right.