Sam Ridley Parkway is Smyrna's front door, and when a freeze is on the way it has to be open at six whether the weather cooperated or not. US Snow Management runs ahead of a storm rather than behind it — treating pavement before the temperature drops, then plowing, clearing walks and entryways, and salting as the ice keeps trying to come back. Middle Tennessee winters deal in ice more than depth, which is the harder problem and the quieter one. The mark of a good night is that nothing at all happens: doors open, carts roll, nobody slips crossing the lot. It takes the whole of the small hours to make a morning look that uneventful.