With 4 inches of snow down and 8 more on the way shortly after midnight Wednesday, the Black Bear was the only thing separating civilization from chaos.
The Black Bear is a Chevy Silverado. With its name in black script on a plexiglass shield above the grille, a plow poised below the front bumper, SNOWMAN on the license plate, and veteran snowplower Louis Napravnik at the wheel, however, it becomes something else: A way out.
While government crews plow streets and highways, legions of entrepreneurs do the rest-the parking lots of hospitals, schools, offices, malls and even the lowly yet principal escape route, the driveway. It is a war out there, not just against the relentless snow, but against fickle machinery and fatigue.
Another element of the plowers’ predicament is this: They knock on doors in search of customers in the summer, the one season when Chicagoans can safely forget about snow. Then, when the inevitable snows begin, plowers whose dance cards already are full will get scores of calls from desperate suitors.
A night with the plowers is an endless and nauseating string of back and forth, forward and reverse, moves that give new meaning to the phrase bump and grind.
Snow Fighter’s Quarterly, a struggling magazine that aims to be the industry’s Bible, sums it up this way: There’s no business like Snow Business.
Napravnik, who founded Snow Buster Inc. in Lincolnwood a decade ago, knows all about the business and the one characteristic plow people share.
“I’d probably say we all have insomnia,” explained Napravnik, who has gone up to 72 hours without sleep to get the job done. “If you can stay up for late night TV you can do this.”
On Wednesday, as 8 inches to a foot of snow reminded Chicagoans that winter was far from over, plowers went to work for what is likely to become a long week. Another 1 to 3 inches of snow is forecast for the area Thursday night and Friday.
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The region needed all available help. Travel was treacherous throughout the city and its suburbs both by car and by air. An estimated 4,000 cases of spinouts and accidents were reported in Lake County alone, according to the sheriff’s office. And numerous flights at O’Hare International Airport were delayed or canceled. The snowstorm even caused garbage collection for the entire city of Chicago to be canceled.
Salt, which had been in short supply, however, was on hand. Some 100,000 tons had been delivered to Illinois communities in the last two weeks, state officials said. And more will be on its way in coming weeks.
Even in this Age of the Snowblower, conditions were sufficent to make entrepreneurs of people equipped with nothing more elaborate than a shovel.
On Wednesday morning, Ben Hill walked up Broadway Street on Chicago’s North Side selling shoveling. Asking businesses $20 to clear their sidewalks, he expected to earn $100 to $200 on the way to work at his job regular job as a telemarketer. He also picked up some other business, digging out stuck taxis for $15.
People who didn’t have snowplows looked into buying them. All six lines of J D Trailers & Hitches in Wheaton rang all morning, sales and service manager Dawn Busse said.
“On days like today you get a lot of people who think if they had a plow installed they could go out and plow now,” she said. “They don’t realize it takes a day.”
Most entrepreneurs, however, are better equipped and have standard prices, determined by the size of the area to be plowed and the depth of the snow. A driveway plowing minimum, plowers say, is generally about $25.
Gene Tedesci, owner and operator of Gene’s Snow Removal in south suburban Steger, has three trucks and has been at this for 13 years. Asked why he keeps doing it, Tedesci said it was simply the fun of plowing, which he described as “controlled violence.”
“You ever get to do doughnuts in the parking lot?” he asked. “It’s like getting paid to do it. . . . Hammer the snow.”
The kinds of storms that have pummeled the Chicago area this winter are the lifeblood of such businesses. Still, he finds it tough to make money because of the cost of insurance and damage to his trucks.
The trucks are always running into light poles, signs and concrete parking barriers, he said. Trucks get dented, plows’ trip springs snap and transmissions fail.
“Imagine taking your car and running it into a brick wall,” he said. “How many times can you slam your car into a brick wall? That’s what you’re doing when you plow snow.”
Amy and Scott Franz’s landscape and nursery business in Elgin metamorphasizes into a snow-removal business in winter. She has been plowing for about three years.
“The very first year I drove, I thought, `Dear Lord, don’t let me kill anybody,’ ” she said.
Now, she worries about the tedium. “When it’s dark and it’s still snowing, it gets really mesmerizing,” she said.
The long nights that stretch into day and night again gives Napravnik plenty of time to think. He is listening to the truck mostly, to gauge whether any mechanical problems may turn up, and to weather reports on the radio. Plowing out the parking lots of offices, schools and group homes in Wilmette and Skokie, Napravnik had time to recall how he got into this business in the first place.
A quarter of a century ago, when he was 12 years old, a kid with a snow shovel, Napravnik would offer to clear driveways for a buck.