Before the shop lights switch on along Main Street, Rapid Creek still runs dark and quick under a skin of shelf ice, and 605 Removal Services is already out on the blocks that back up against it, clearing driveways and lots while the water keeps moving underneath. Rapid City takes snow from two directions at once, storms shoving down off the Black Hills to the west and flatter systems riding in across the plains to the east, and a crew working the creek-side streets learns to read which one is coming by how the wind leans. Blades scrape down to bare pavement along the downtown blocks nearest the creek, sidewalks get pushed clean to the concrete, and a plowed path threads between the banks well before the first commuters turn onto Main. It is early work, done block by block beside a creek that never quite freezes solid. The route covers the neighborhoods ringing downtown and reaches out toward Box Elder and Black Hawk on the mornings the storm tracks wide.