The day coronavirus canceled prom and everything else for an LA high school singer
LOS ANGELES - When the sky is still dark with night, Estefani Lopez awakens.
Her mother, Azucena "Susy" Lopez, prepares the day's lunch in the kitchen while Lopez, 17, brushes her teeth in the bathroom and carefully inserts her contacts, her eyes still heavy with sleep. It is Thursday, March 12, one day before Los Angeles school officials will announce school shutdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19 and a week before Mayor Eric Garcetti's Safer at Home order.
On this day, like so many others during the school year from Monday to Thursday, at 5:30 a.m. on the dot Lopez and her mother bolt out of their Riverside home and drive 20 miles north to San Bernardino Depot, where Lopez catches the Metrolink to the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) in Los Angeles' Eastside.
It's a 1 1/2-hour commute to school, and the train is nearly always prompt, departing exactly at 6:03 a.m. Any minor morning delays at home could cause Lopez to miss the train. And that would mean her mother has to drive more than 50 miles to drop her off at
