AS the sun sets on Miami Beach, residents are locking their doors amid a Spring Break marred by shootings, fights, and stampedes.
Once again, the festival that started out as a celebration of sun, sea, and sex has turned into an orgy of violence.
In drastic new measures, Miami Beach, in Florida, has declared a state of emergency in a bid to counter this year’s carnage, which reportedly saw five people shot over the weekend.
Events have already got so out-of-hand that police were forced to call in military-style support, even deploying a SWAT team to break up unruly crowds.
The annual getaway is a must for any American student and sees around 600,000 young people descend on the Sunshine State for boozy beach parties.
But what started out as a sporting event in the 1930s now has a dark side that leaves law enforcement overwhelmed and residents terrified.
1930s: Making a Break for it
In 1936, swimming coach Sam Ingram brought his team from Colgate University, New York, to train at the Casino Pool, in Fort Lauderdale, the first Olympic-size swimming pool in Florida.
It went so well they returned the following year and two years later, sensing a marketing opportunity, the city hosted the first College Coaches’ Swim Forum at the venue and invited more than 300 swimmers to compete.
With its hundreds of hotels and motels and its hot weather, more and more colleges cottoned on to the idea of taking students there towards the end of March, when classes break for a week.
With so many fun-loving young people in one place, it’s no wonder sex and alcohol became part of the annual festivities.
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1950s: 'It's not that we drink... we drink all the time'
In the following decades, Spring Break became more boozy and risqué.
Time magazine first reported on the annual escape in a 1959 article titled “Beer and the Beach.”
In it, one reveller was quoted as saying: “It’s not that we drink so much, it’s that we drink all the time.”
The following year, the first Spring Break-themed movie, Where the Boys Are, starring George Hamilton, was released, further popularising the idea of a students’ getaway.
But the residents of Fort Lauderdale were becoming unhappy with the antics of 250,000 drunken, sex-crazed college students. For a town of only 36,000 population, the annual influx caused chaos.
Fort Lauderdale attempted to ban alcohol on its beaches and impose a curfew, but both were struck out by the courts.
70s and 80s: Nudity, wet T-shirts and balcony dives
In the Seventies, parties were defined by nudity and infamous wet T-shirt competitions.
The rather dangerous habit of “balcony diving” also started, where students would dare each other to hop from one hotel room to another via their balconies.
The film, Spring Break, starring Tom Cruise came out in 1983 and MTV started broadcasting Spring Break shows and live music in 1986, making the parties even more popular.
When Fort Lauderdale authorities cracked down on the increasingly wild antics in the 80s - which by now was seeing around 350,000 students descend each year - Spring Break went south.
Today: 1,000 arrests and 'no-go' areas
Spring Breakers are known to cause carnage all over the States as well as in Cancun, Mexico, but sunkissed Miami Beach, Florida, is now a particularly popular destination for rowdy students.
Last March in Miami, over 1,000 arrests were made because of excessive drinking and violence among Spring Breakers in the city.
And while residents once welcomed the tourism dollars and party atmosphere the students brought with them, now they are terrified they too will wind up as casualties of the violence.
In online communities, locals have alleged parts of their city have temporarily become “no-go” areas. Meanwhile, local officials say Spring Break has been getting more out-of-hand with every passing year.
Last year, the South Florida city declared a Spring Break state of emergency for the first time – and all signs from this year’s festivities suggest worse is yet to come.
At an emergency press conference this week, Miami mayor Dan Gelber announced measures to limit the chaos.
“Our city is past its end point. We can’t endure this any more, we simply can’t,” he said. “This isn’t your father’s, your mother’s Spring Break. This is something totally different.
“We don’t ask for Spring Break. We don’t promote it, we don’t encourage it - we just endure it, and frankly it’s not something we want to endure.”
Officials in Miami now hope a curfew, from midnight to 6am, will stop the violence and disorder which has become an annual feature.
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During those times, only residents, hotel guests, and business owners will be able to enter the Miami Beach area.
Other measures have also been touted, including bans on open alcohol containers and an increasingly militarised police presence.
