A clipper dropping down out of the northwest usually reaches Pontiac after midnight, and by then Express Snow Removal & Landscaping is already rolling along Huron Street with the blade down. Snow here doesn't always arrive as a storm; more often it's three inches coming quietly for six hours, which is the kind that catches people out. Driveways get opened first, then the walks, then the apron the county plow will fill back in — and often a second pass at daybreak to take care of exactly that. Ice control goes down where an overnight refreeze turns yesterday's melt to glass. The whole point of the night is a door that opens onto clear ground.