Narco-blockades ordered by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) following the operation that led to the death of its leader Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, alias 'El Mencho', have left six communities and a neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, partially isolated and cut off after a bridge was burned. With an estimated population of 5,000 people according to INEGI figures, the Ecoterra Paraíso subdivision and the rural communities of El Colorado, El Ranchito, El Cantón, El Zancudo, El Aguacate, and Rancho Nácar have lost direct communication with Puerto Vallarta and the federal highway to Guadalajara due to the damage caused by 'El Mencho's men' on the La Desembocada bridge. The isolation and lack of communication have already taken their toll: supplies at local stores are running out, and the only Oxxo convenience store operating on the highway, at the entrance to the Ecoterra subdivision, was looted and destroyed on the afternoon of Sunday, February 22, while the Mexican Army and the National Guard faced CJNG forces across Jalisco. The truck route that reached the communities and the subdivision has no way to get through, nor can the vehicles that supply the grocery stores and other small businesses in any of these communities. The buses that Puerto Vallarta hotels send to these locations to pick up their workers cannot go to Ecoterra or to the other villages, a level of impact that this tourist center and its metropolitan area had only previously experienced with the force of hurricanes. For now, people are crossing a bridge that was completely damaged in its structure on motorcycles, and the circulation of cars, pickups, and all types of heavy vehicles has already been prohibited on it. Neither small trucks nor vans for distributing supplies can cross the bridge. The La Desembocada bridge crosses the Río Mascota, a seasonal tributary that originates in the Western Sierra Madre, which in the rainy season can reach a flow of up to 3,000 cubic meters per second and rises of up to six meters, according to data from the National Water Commission (Conagua). The danger of the Río Mascota was evidenced by Hurricane Patricia in 2015, when the bridge had to be renovated, Nora in 2021, and Lidia in 2023. In all three cases, the force of the water overflowed the tributary and flooded the La Desembocada area, affecting the six communities and the subdivision that depend on Puerto Vallarta to have access to food, medical services, and work. The need to remain in communication with Puerto Vallarta is so great that some vehicles are crossing the bed of the Río Mascota to complete the journey, taking advantage of the fact that its flow at this time of year is at its lowest. The people living in the affected area know that in the rainy season it will be impossible to cross the riverbed, so they urge federal, state, and municipal authorities to rebuild the bridge before May, which would mean completing the work in record time. The La Desembocada bridge is built with a three-dimensional steel truss that supports a concrete slab, but the Warren-type structures or equilateral triangles that supported vehicle traffic were damaged or destroyed by fire and some explosions that occurred last Sunday, February 22. Among the neighbors, the hypothesis has been considered that CJNG hitmen tried to bring down the bridge with explosives, but the evidence suggests that the damage could have been caused by the fire that the hitmen set on the bridge by setting fire to a bus, a cargo truck, a garbage truck, and at least four cars, generating a great wave of heat and explosions that shook the windows of the houses in the Ecoterra Paraíso subdivision. Neighbors, who requested to keep their identities private for security reasons, indicated that the trip, which took 30 to 40 minutes by car and one to one and a half hours by bus, as of this Wednesday, February 25, has skyrocketed to over two hours. The alternative public transport that local authorities are offering people is to provide a bus that takes them to one side of the La Desembocada bridge for a cost of 10 pesos, cross the structure on foot, and after a five-minute walk, board another bus to Puerto Vallarta that will charge the same fare of 16 pesos that they pay for the full route. Thus, the communities that were previously affected by torrential rains now face the ravages of a new storm: the rain of bullets with which CJNG cut off the road connecting Mascota, one of its strongholds, with Puerto Vallarta after the death of 'El Mencho'.
