MIAMI — Authorities in Miami Beach are saying a “silent prayer” as large spring break crowds once again pack South Beach a year after revelers overwhelmed the city and led police to call in a SWAT team to enforce its emergency curfew.
After ramping up staffing this month and calling in backup, police are bracing for what they expect to be one of the busiest spring break weekends on the heels of St. Patrick’s Day, when there was a gun scare and brief crowd stampede on Lummus Park near Ocean Drive.
More than a dozen police cruisers were stationed in the park afterward, as officers patrolled the club strip on foot and in buggies while large crowds swarmed on Ocean Drive.
“We just need to get through it and make sure we get through it with little to no fanfare,” Police Chief Richard Clements told The Miami Herald earlier Thursday.
“We’ve got to be careful not to entice the crowd into a negative interaction. The kids have for the most part been very good. I’m saying a very silent prayer,” he added.
So far this month, police say there has been less disorder in South Beach compared to last year and that crowds have reacted more positively to officers. Clements said police have not closed any of the major causeways entering the city like they did in 2021, and that he did not believe any officers had been injured as in previous years.
Florida’s warm weather and relatively lax COVID-19 rules made it an attractive spring break destination last year. There was still a midnight pandemic-era curfew in effect from Miami-Dade County last March. Since then, dozens of states have ended their COVID-19 restrictions. Miami Beach this year rolled out a new publicly funded beach concert series and also reopened Ocean Drive to one-way traffic and put in a bicycle lane, which limited where crowds can gather.
The toned-down atmosphere in South Beach surprised Jefferson Koulibaly, a 20-year-old student at Washington State University, who said he was disappointed the energy was not as high as last year.
“What I saw during COVID, that was crazy,” he said.
A group of students from Alabama State University agreed that the mood was more relaxed, but they said as more visitors come Friday and Saturday night, the party will begin in full.
“Everybody right now is just trying to get a feel of it, people are still coming in for the weekend,” said Jacory Lee, 21. “This weekend I feel like there will be way more people than right now.”
Miami International Airport has seen record-high airline traffic during spring break, with an average of 153,000 overall travelers per day going through the airport in March — about 13% above pre-pandemic levels, according to the airport. Last Sunday was the busiest single travel day in its history, with more than 166,000 travelers, the airport said.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said St. Patrick’s Day weekend is usually the most difficult period during spring break and South Beach now “feels like a tinder,” as thousands of people converge in a small 10-block entertainment district.
While South Beach doesn’t feel as “mobbed” this year, he said this weekend will once again test the police.
“We’re preparing for what we saw last year and hoping for something different,” Gelber said.
As her friends played Spikeball at the beach, 19-year-old Bella Sciachitano said the crowds that gather on the beach during the day have been more relaxed than those that cluster near the clubs on “hectic” Ocean Drive at night.
Sciachitano, a Concordia University, Wisconsin freshman, said she feels uncomfortable walking on Ocean Drive at night, and prefers going to Wynwood instead.
“It’s insane,” she said. “Be careful. If you’re a girl, always have your hand on your purse so you don’t get pick-pocketed.”
She said she was thinking about visiting South Beach last spring break, but her mother talked her out of it after seeing news reports of disorder in the streets.
“So my mom was like, ‘Disney World it is,’ ” Sciachitano said.
