The Death of Grady Norton

On October 9, 1954, famed Weather Bureau Hurricane Forecaster Grady Norton died of a stroke while at home in Miami while just after working a 12 hour day plotting the course of Hurricane Hazel. The Alabama native was 60 years old.

Norton ignored warnings of his medical condition in order to provide warnings about the Hurricane, which would go onto blast the North Carolina coast on October 15.

Norton is widely recognized as the original director of the National Hurricane Center even though that position would not be created during his lifetime. Norton established an extraordinary reputation as an expert forecaster who had a tremendous ability to communicate with coastal residents.

In January 1955, Norton was featured on an episode on the television show Man Behind the Badge. Actor Milborne Stone played the great forecaster.

Here is the transcript of the introduction to that show:

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Hello. I am Charles Victor. That quotation about the weather might have been true once, but it no longer holds, because one man did do something about it. One man spent his life fighting the fury of the wildest of winds – the hurricane.

And he was the first to learn how to track it from its birth to its death. What does that mean? Well, a hurricane leaping in from nowhere used to mean one day of unbridled power. The next was a day of mourning for five hundred dead. Yes, that was the death rate not so long ago.

But the hurricane with its next move forecast cut that rate to five. This then was the life work of one man. And this is his story. A story? No, it’s a tribute. Because the man we are speaking of tonight died a short time ago. He will never be forgotten by those who live in or travel through a hurricane area. But can he ever be thanked enough by future generations? And so, our tribute. Our salute to Grady Norton. Tonight’s Man Behind the Badge.

See it yourself at: http://www.liketelevision.com/blog/archives/000351.html