The Flatwater Free Press

1 week ago | flatwaterfreepress.org | Sky Chadde

Around 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve in 2022, flames ripped through the bowels of an industrial facility in Fremont, Nebraska. Elevators were scorched. Conveyor belts collapsed. Metal doors melted. As smoke filled the sky, employees scrambled to escape. One dialed 911. “The plant’s on fire,” he hurriedly breathed. “Is everybody out of there?” the dispatcher asked. “Working on it.”Local fire crews extinguished the blaze at the Archer Daniels Midland plant about three hours later.

1 week ago | flatwaterfreepress.org | Christopher Burbach

The people waiting their turn to rappel down the 17-story Highline Apartments building had strict instructions: Don’t come up to the roof until we come get you. Most of the group, assembled there for a fundraiser, seemed content to hang back in the designated waiting area half a flight of stairs below the roof, where they’d eventually step over the edge into the blue sky high above downtown Omaha. All but one person, actually. Sister Stephanie Matcha, age 81.

1 week ago | flatwaterfreepress.org | Emily Wolf

As he tracked the growing measles outbreak in Texas, watching with dread as it crossed state lines, Bob Rauner knew there was no time to waste. Fearful the once common — and life-threatening — virus would eventually reach Nebraska, the physician and Lincoln Public Schools board president began publicly sounding the alarm. “Nebraska’s vaccination rates mirror those of Texas,” Rauner said during an April school board meeting. “We have similar holes, just like Texas does.

2 weeks ago | flatwaterfreepress.org | Natalia Alamdari

SCHUYLER — In a classroom 7,903 miles from home, Dorina Ramos counts down from five.  “Five,” Ramos says in her clear and practiced English, as a teenager passing around handfuls of chips sits back at his desk. “Four.” A lingering high schooler stores his school-issued iPad away in a classroom cabinet. “Three.” Another teenager wanders from the pencil sharpener back to her seat. “Two.” The Spanish chatter of Ramos’ class of immigrant high schoolers falls to a hush.

2 weeks ago | flatwaterfreepress.org | Sarah Baker Hansen

“Fusion” has become a bit of a dirty word in the restaurant world, or at least something that has gone out of fashion. Cattle Call, on the corner of 16th and Farnam streets, is doing its part to bring fusion into 2025. And it’s doing so in an interesting way, serving chef-driven, higher-end cuisine in a casual, comfortable spot on 16th Street. It’s affordable, at least relatively speaking. It’s open late, giving downtown Omaha a late-night option it desperately needs.