On January 18, 2019, New Jersey declared a state of emergency, effective Sunday, because of the impending snowstorm.

According to NJ’s Office of Emergency Management website, a state of emergency occurs when the State prepares itself for disasters: “The Governor declares a State of Emergency when he/she believes a disaster has occurred or may be imminent that is severe enough to require State aid to supplement local resources in preventing or alleviating damages, loss, hardship or suffering.”

The Cresskill OEM also announced: “As dangerously low temps continue, remember to check in on your friends or neighbors who may be vulnerable to the extreme cold.”

As a result of this weather, several school events were canceled.

The ICHSA (International Championship of High School A Cappella) competition was canceled the day before the competition. The competition, featuring SoundXplosion and Note-o-riety, was rescheduled to January 25th.

The JV Boys basketball tournament was  canceled at the same time. It was supposed to be on the 19th, but was rescheduled to the following Saturday

The consensus was that the postponement of the event was a positive.

For Dana Peri, a freshman in Note-o-riety, the postponement meant that she could perform. “Originally, I couldn’t compete because I was supposed to go on a leadership experience for a program in Florida for my Israeli scouts. I was really upset because I didn’t want to miss the competition and put more pressure on [the team]. I’m really happy that I got the chance to experience my first ICHSA competition with [the team],” she explained.

Since boys JV basketball got an extra week, they were able to have 5 practices in the meantime. Brian McQuillen, a sophomore from the JV basketball team, said, “It gave us more time to prepare. That was the only benefit of it.”

Yet the state of emergency failed to serve its actual purpose: although the extreme cold boded true, there was no trace of snow to be seen at the 20th. But who doesn’t want an extra week to practice?