On Saturday, members of the Onalaska Hilltopper Rotary Club helped people outside Puerto Vallarta with filters that provided clean water to drink. They distributed nearly 300 filters to people in the region and educated them on the filter's use.  

On Sunday, violence came to the resort town on the sea.  

For Lisa Kind, who was heading to breakfast with a friend, had seen smoke in the distance, didn’t think much of it. Then they ran into a man who tried to explain to them in Spanish what was going on.  

“He was saying, ‘Vamanos, vamanos, get back to your hotel’. It was just one of those moments of like, ‘Is that exactly what he’s saying? He’s saying the cartel is taking over the city and we need to get back to our hotel. We hightailed it back to our hotel. We were only about two or three blocks away from our hotel.”  

The violence stemmed from the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, called “El Mencho,” who was the boss of one of the fastest-growing criminal networks in Mexico. It is known for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine to the United States.  

Kind said she’d spoken to other people who had been out of the hotel who told her the town was, for the most part, shut down on Sunday and Monday. Most of the businesses were closed. There was very little traffic on the street. There was still a threat of more violence occurring according to reports. 

While the members, friends, and family are staying in different places, Kind said everyone was OK on Monday afternoon when she spoke to WIZM News.  

“Everybody’s safe, everybody’s checked in, everybody’s shelter in place,” she said. “The five Rotarians that are with us are all safe. We’ve all checked in with each other. We’re all doing fine. Just would like to know when we’re going to get out of here, when the airport is going to open so we can get on the airplane back home.” 

Some of the group did have different travel plans. Kind was supposed to fly out on Sunday afternoon. She said the flight was eventually cancelled. Now the earliest she can get a flight back to the United States is this coming Sunday.