THOUSANDS of Spring Breakers have been seen packing Florida’s beaches as they party without Covid restrictions for the first time in two years.
The Sun’s exclusive wild drone footage shows the revellers drinking and wrestling, with huge crowds bordering the Fort Lauderdale shore.
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Miami and Fort Lauderdale, known as “Spring Break Central,” usually serve as the Spring Break destination for thousands of college students and tourists looking for a rowdy time.
Over the next month the state will see an unprecedented number of visitors, according to the state’s officials.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, about 570,00 students will be on holiday at the same time in Florida this Spring Break season.
Tampa’s International Airport has been seeing passenger counts that exceed the same record-breaking dates in 2019, some by as much as 29 percent, according to the local news outlet.
In total, more than 39,000 travelers per day are expected to arrive at the Tampa airport during Spring Break.
“The 2022 spring break period, which runs through April 26, will see peak days that reach nearly 88,000 passengers and many that will exceed 80,000 — a very strong comparison to 2019 spring break, which beat all prior airport records,” the airport said in a statement.
In comparison, 2021 saw about 65,000 passengers per day at most, and in 2020, some Spring Break days saw as few as 1,500 passengers a day.
Miami is also expected to see much larger numbers of tourists than in the two previous years.
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“We absolutely expect at least double if not triple what we saw last year as far as attendance,” Fort Lauderdale Police Maj Bill Schultz told NBC Miami.
Due to the chaos of previous years, officials have implemented new rules this year, banning tents, coolers, and any other folding furniture from the sand, as well as loud music and speakers.
Additionally, electric or motorized scooters are banned until further notice.
This year’s Spring Break has already seen plenty of debauchery in the state.
In Seaside, near Panama City, teenagers were caught in CCTV footage vandalizing businesses and wreaking havoc.
Police are searching for the Spring Breakers, who they say have left a trail of destruction in their path during the early hours of Tuesday.
“Not the type of Spring Break behavior we want to see,” the Walton County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.
“It’s one thing to have fun. It’s quite another to destroy property and disrespect those who live and work here.”
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It comes after come after six people overdosed on cocaine mixed with fentanyl – including several West Point cadets – during the wild celebrations in Fort Lauderdale.
First responders found the group on the front lawn of their short-term vacation rental on Thursday night, according to Florida officials.
In a statement to The New York Times, a West Point spokesperson confirmed that five of the six overdose victims are cadets, adding they’re “aware of the incident.”
Investigators said that the home had been full of spring breakers when the group started doing drugs at one point, leading to the overdose.
“We are being told that four of those people had taken a substance that was believed to be cocaine laced with fentanyl when they went down into cardiac arrest,” said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Gollan.
Neighbors described the scene to NBC6 with one saying, “We saw paramedics pulling the kids out of the house, unconscious, just laying them on the grass.”
The Wilton Manors Police Department posted a tweet from their official Twitter account to “warn spring breakers about the dangers of using illicit drugs & to avoid mixing drugs with alcohol or other forms of drugs.
“Protect yourself from the dangers of Fentanyl.”
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