Fact Check: Old videos shared as visuals of recent floods in New York, USA

Hyderabad: As per media reports, a state of emergency has been declared in New York City in the USA as strong storms brought flash flooding to one of the most popular cities in the world. Because of the heavy rainfall, subway systems, streets and highways have flooded, stalling city life.

Amidst the chaos in New York, international social media is flooded with videos with misleading claims. One video shows a person crossing a flooded subway, and another shows several people shopping in a flooded supermarket, with users claiming them as recent visuals of floods from New York, United States.

A Facebook user shared the video of a commuter wading dangerously through the floodwaters inside a subway with the caption, “END TIME NEWS – People are swimming in the subway in New York City. (sic)”

Another user tweeted the video of the supermarket with the caption, “People grocery shopping in knee-high water during the apocalyptic flooding in New York City today as strange new animals float around them. (sic)”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video of the flooded subway is from New York but from 2021. The video of the flooded supermarket is reportedly from New Zealand.

Upon a reverse image search of the keyframes of the first video, we came across the same visuals of the lady wearing a pink T-shirt in a video report by the verified YouTube channel Eyewitness News ABC7NY published on July 10, 2021, titled “Videos of flooded subway stations spark infrastructure concerns.”

We found the same visual published by The Telegraph’s YouTube Channel on July 9, 2021, titled “Commuters wade through water as Storm Elsa floods New York subway stations.”

The reverse search on the keyframes of the second video led us to the same video published by the official YouTube channel of Australia’s number one news site ‘news.com.au.’ The video was published on January 28, 2023, titled “New Zealand supermarket floods as state of emergency declared.”

The video’s description read, “A New Zealand supermarket in Wairau has completely flooded as state of emergency declared across the country.”

Hence, we conclude both videos are old and do not show the visuals of floods currently hitting New York. The claims are false.