Snow reaches the South Fork last and leaves it wet and heavy, packed by wind off the water into ridges across every driveway apron. Southampton Excavation & Site Development runs its plows into that, hours before the first car turns onto Montauk Highway, so the way out is open when people wake up. There is nothing romantic about three in the morning except this: the truck lights, the empty road, and the clean black stripe left behind. Plowing, driveways and walkways cleared, de-icing where the shade holds the ice longest — one long night's work, repeated as many times as the winter asks for it. Southampton, Water Mill, North Sea, Shinnecock Hills and Hampton Bays.