County Street runs the ridge, and nearly every side street off it tips downhill toward the harbor — which is exactly why New Bedford driveways ice the way they do. Arka Landscape & Junk Removal, LLC works those pitches in February, plowing, shoveling and laying salt where meltwater will run overnight and set solid by four in the morning. Storms here often begin as snow and end as rain, so timing beats brute force nearly every time. A cleared drive on a hill street, gritted at the lip where a car has to stop, is a quiet piece of engineering. Storm after storm, that is the work.