Inflation has packed its bags and left the beach.

n the sharpest turnaround ever recorded, consumer prices in South Florida last year barely went up.

Often in recent years, Inflation in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropoolitan area was so high it beat out the rate in any other metro area.

But in 2008, the local consumer price iIndex was running at a 0.5 annual rate in December, the Bureau of of Labor Statistics announced Friday. That was a huge decline since October, when local prices were rising at a 4 percent annual rate.

Early in the year, it was as high as 5.8 percent.

"The insanity regarding inflation was largely driven by energy prices," said Economist Sean Snaith of the University of Central Florida. "That's been put on hold at least temporarily by the collapse of oil prices."

He says the CPI will probably be a negative number for the next few months.