By Ceoli Jacoby

The tension was palpable in the Dorn household on Wednesday, March 11. In a primetime Oval Office address that evening, President Donald Trump announced his plans to suspend “all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days” in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

Immediately, Erin Dorn was overcome with concern. Her daughter Katie Dorn, a junior environmental science and public policy double major at the University of Maryland, was an ocean away participating in the Maryland-in-Barcelona education abroad program.

“When it was in real time they didn’t clarify whether they were accepting American citizens or not, so we just thought everyone had to be back by that Friday night,” Dorn’s mother said. “Katie’s sister and brother, my husband and I, we were all four on our computers trying to find flights because everyone was in the same panic.”

Hours later, at 2:30 a.m. Central European Time, Katie Dorn and her roommates were awakened by frantic phone calls from parents. But that the trip would be cut short came as no surprise.

“I went to Switzerland for one weekend and at that point we had like 600 cases … and then by the time I came back to Spain it was like 1,000. And we were like, ‘Okay, we know we’re gonna be sent home,’” Dorn said. 

But her roommates did not anticipate such a quick turnaround.

 “We figured by the time we were notified we’d have about two weeks until we would have to go home cause that’s what they did for the Italy kids,” Dorn said. “We knew we didn’t have a lot of time … but we had literally like 12 hours by the time we got the call.”

In those 12 hours, the girls had to pack their belongings, clean up their apartment and get to the airport by 3 p.m. They would leave the city with bucket list items unchecked, having waited to visit the most popular tourist locations until their parents and friends could visit over spring break.

“My friend and I luckily got to see the two big things there, La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell, that morning. But we had to pull an all-nighter to do that … so it was a complete shock and we were really upset about it,” Dorn said.

Bree Parsons, a junior broadcast journalism and finance double major who roomed with Dorn in Barcelona, shared in the disappointment. 

“We kind of said goodbye to Barcelona in hours, instead of being able to know when we were leaving, have a final week or know what our last meal was going to be,” she said.

The roommates were not alone in their alarm. The Trump administration’s confusing announcement triggered a mass exodus of American citizens from Europe. Due to the increased demand, available flights were expensive and hard to come by. 

Dorn originally planned on taking a United Airlines flight home on April 3, when spring break at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona was set to begin. However, no United Airlines flights from Barcelona to the U.S. were available that night. In fact, not one airline was offering direct flights between the two locations. 

“We were afraid to fly her into Germany or France or any of those other countries because we didn’t want her to get stuck there,” Dorn’s mother said. Instead, she decided to fly her daughter into London. At the time, the United Kingdom was still exempt from travel restrictions.

“That was the only flight out of Barcelona, so we had to book it,” Parsons said.

The plane tickets cost $3,000 each. 

“It wasn’t exactly what we thought we were gonna spend, but we were also completely panicked at that point,” Dorn’s mother said. “The only thing that [the university] said they would reimburse us for is $500 for change fees.”

Despite the loss, the family still believes they dodged a bullet by flying Dorn home before March 14. That day, airports across the country experienced crowded conditions and increased wait times as panicked travelers raced to get home.

“They didn’t take our temperatures or anything …we got back just before the extra health screenings took place in the airports so they kind of just let us go through,” Parsons said.

“That was our blessing,” said Dorn’s mother. “To have her come back and not have to go through all of the more strenuous things they had to go through on Saturday.” 

The roommates returned home on Friday, March 13. That same day, Spain declared a national emergency. 

Three days later, the University of Maryland informed students of the first Maryland-in-Barcelona participant to test positive for COVID-19. All students returning from education abroad trips were advised to self-isolate for two weeks following their arrival in the States.

“It was funny ‘cause it seemed like non-study abroad people were more freaked out than we were just because we were already quarantined,” Dorn said. “We’ve just been monitoring ourselves ever since we got back and we haven’t had any symptoms.”

The Dorn family isn’t taking chances, either.

 “We have a bedroom and a bathroom in our basement so she’s been pretty much sleeping down there for the last two weeks … we scrub stuff down and we’re washing our hands all the time,” Dorn’s mother said. “Little bit scary, but we were gonna quarantine her anyway for 14 days … we were just happy to have her back.”

Photo: Park Güell, a popular tourist destination in Barcelona, taken shortly before Dorn had to abruptly leave the city due to COVID-19. Photo courtesy of Katie Dorn.