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New Jersey residents should understand that legitimate emergency communications follow a standardized, multi-platform approach. When a state of emergency is truly in effect, the announcement originates from the Governor’s Office and is disseminated through the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM), verified social media accounts with official “checkmarks,” and established news organizations. A single, unsourced image or a vague tweet from an unverified account is rarely the way a government communicates a serious legal declaration. Furthermore, images shared online are frequently stripped of their original timestamps and metadata. A news banner showing “State of Emergency” might have been a legitimate report during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 or a major snowstorm in 2018, yet it can be presented today as if it were happening in the current hour.
