The new teletypewriter circuit served well. After this violent hurricane crossed the Keys, it went through the eastern Gulf and then passed over Western Florida and overland to Norfolk. In spite of intense public excitement, communications between weather offices were maintained without serious interruption. This improved service continued in the years that followed. Radio circuits to the West Indies and a teletypewriter circuit to Cuba by cable helped to bring the reports promptly and at frequent intervals in emergencies. In this modern drama of fear and violence, the hurricane warning has become the signal that may cause desperate actions by hundreds of thousands of people. Colossal costs are entailed in the movement of populations in exposed places and in the protection of property and interruption of business. Now, in this emergency, a civil service employee not used to making decisions involving large sums of money finds himself in a position from which he has no escape. He has to make up his mind—to issue the warning or not to issue it. If he fails to get it out in time, there will be much loss of life and property that might have been avoided. If he issues the warning and the hurricane turns away from the coast or loses force, very large costs will have been entailed without apparent justification. In either case, he will be subjected to a lot of criticism. The hurricane hunter and forecaster who stepped into this responsible position at a critical time was Grady Norton. Born in Alabama, in 1895, Grady joined the Weather Bureau shortly before World War I, then became a meteorologist in the Army, after taking training at A. & M. College of Texas, where a weather school was established early in 1918. But he had no wish to be a forecaster or to send out warnings of hurricanes. Nevertheless, the people in Washington were unable to get out of their minds the fact that whenever Norton made forecasts for practice, his rating was very high, especially for the southeastern part of the country. The Bureau encouraged him at every opportunity because he was one of those who are born with the knack of making good weather predictions—which is an art rather than a science, even in its present stage of development.