Wreaking Havoc on Spring Break

Every year just before Easter, they flock to Florida's beaches, hundreds of thousands of them, bikinis and libidos at the ready. After a week of the unimaginable and the unmentionable (to parents), spending up to $300 million on their bacchanal, they return to their college campuses, survivors of spring break. Says Dave Mazur, a Canisius College freshman: "Fort Lauderdale is like Mecca. You have to make the trip at least once. It's what everybody says it is --beaches, beer and bikinis . . . sand, surf and sex."

And tragedy too. Among the 800,000 reveling collegians who flocked to Fort Lauderdale,...