I woke up this morning at my home in Puerto Vallarta, one day after narco-driven attacks here and in many other parts of Mexico spread chaos, panic, and misinformation through the streets.
Despite widespread rumors that cartel sicarios were going to start attacking homes and civilians at the strike of midnight last night–unless the forces responsible for the death of their leader “El Mencho” were delivered to the cartel–Vallarta woke up to an eerily quiet morning.
As the sun peaked at 7:30 a.m., civilians going live on Facebook posted videos of a completely empty Boulevard Francisco Medina Ascencio, which is usually full of bustling traffic acting as the main thoroughfare through Puerto Vallarta.
The faint smell of burned debris still lingered, from organized crime soldiers lighting hundreds of vehicles and businesses on fire, as they are reported to have done across 20 states in Mexico.
At 11 a.m., we saw civilians and tourists starting to come back out to the streets to see all the damage most of us only saw on our screens. We also saw a group of teenage sicarios, rolling six-deep and smirking, helmet-less on motorbikes, as well as a man in a car stealing transmission oil from unstaffed gas stations. A handful of looters were taking auto supplies from the few remaining unmasked gas stations that were not burned down.
A couple of snowbirds from Quebec, who preferred to not be identified and have been coming here to live part-time for the last 13 years, told me that this is the last time they are coming to Puerto Vallarta.
Costco remained closed as more than a dozen cars, two semis, and one motorcycle were burned down fewer than 20 feet away from the building. While the local government and American embassy were still advising residents and tourists to shelter in place, a few hundred people braved the traffic to come and buy provisions at La Comer, located in the Fluvial neighborhood, right next to Costco.
Despite the crisis surrounding them, people waited patiently for their turn to shop. Inside La Comer, aisles were well-stocked, with eggs and bread already the first to go from shelves.
City buses are back in service today and as of 1 p.m., city services were removing all burned vehicles found blocking streets.
A question that has arisen a lot is why are cartels burning down cars and businesses? It’s a tactic to instill fear into residents and tourists alike, to maintain control and show power in short. It is also a show of force to the government, hitting the coffers of tourist bureaus and cities that benefit greatly from having visitors in swift, sustained attacks, executed immediately at the command of its leaders.
This morning, the Mexican president held her usual weekday 7 a.m. press conference during which her cabinet debriefed everyone about the operation, in which Mexico worked in tandem with U.S. intelligence.
What made this operation different from any other was the use of the Mexican Army. The secretary of defense General Ricardo Treviño was visibly emotional when sharing the numbers of how many Mexican National Guard soldiers were shot dead by the cartel yesterday.
According to official numbers shared in the briefing, overall death tolls from the operation and immediate aftermath are cited around 62-73 people (including security forces, cartel suspects, and a few civilians and officials, including a prosecutor and security guard).
But most people continue to say that the eerie quiet is the most haunting experience from this whole crisis in one of Mexico‘s most peaceful and visited beach towns. The near-silence was haunting me, too, after all of yesterday’s sounds of explosions. There were absolutely no police or ambulance sirens anywhere today. Hinting at the control and fear that organized crime has in Mexico, even with first responders.
As of the publishing of this story, no other cartel activity has been reported in Puerto Vallarta and its communities.
