Phil Murphy has another storm to deal with.

That may seem like just another part of life as a governor, but nothing is all that normal during a campaign.

Giving an update Tuesday morning, Murphy said the state is “carefully tracking” the current storm and that state offices didn’t open until 11 a.m.

“This one is a long storm,” he said, referring to the time it will spend over New Jersey.

Rain and sustained wind is expected to last the rest of the day and into the evening.

The governor said the state of emergency he declared at 8 p.m. last night remains in effect.

A state of emergency in many ways is a bureaucratic declaration.

What it officially does is make it easier for the state to close roads and perhaps more importantly, seek federal aid after the fact. It’s not going to stop the rain.

Such a declaration became a political issue last month when Jack Ciattarelli criticized Murphy for waiting too long to declare an emergency in regard to Hurricane Ida. As the GOP candidate has pointed out, Murphy’s declaration came hours after a similar one was made in Pennsylvania.

Given the fact geography supersedes politics, the storm did hit Pennsylvania before it hit New Jersey, but Ciattarelli’s overall point was that Murphy was asleep at the switch.

So it was no surprise that this time around, Murphy quickly declared a state of emergency Monday night.

Nor was it a surprise that the governor, as he often does, denied that politics had anything to do with that decision. .

He put it this way at his update, “Politics is never a factor here. Our job is to save as many lives as possible.”