246 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



damaged, 1,641 other buildings destroyed and 16,832 damaged, 131 

 boats destroyed and 635 damaged. 13 In addition, heavy marine casual- 

 ties directly related to intensified patrol and other war exigencies 

 amounted to 344 men and 5 vessels. 



From other sources 14 the property damage for the 1944 storm may 

 be placed at $100,000,000, as against $300,000,000 for the 1938 

 hurricane. 



One or two examples of damage may be noted. At Nantucket the 

 Coast Guard Station was washed away. At Newport, with a maxi- 

 mum wind velocity of 84 miles an hour at nearby Quonset, more trees 

 were destroyed than in 1938. The 1944 storm passed 50 to 100 miles 

 nearer the shores of North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and New 

 Jersey than the 1938 one. That is why those coasts suffered so much 

 more damage this time. 15 



But for the experience gained in the 1938 hurricane and the lessons 

 it taught, the 1944 storm would have cost more lives and created far 

 more havoc. 



A hurricane observing and warning service has been set up in the 

 North Atlantic States. More attention has been paid to the direction 

 and velocity of the middle and upper levels of the air stream in which 

 a hurricane may be traveling. Cloud movements as indicators have 

 been more carefully studied at weather stations in recent years. An 

 important development in this connection is the tracing of balloons 

 by radio — both by radar and by radio direction finding. This method, 

 known as "rawins," made possible the determination of all winds aloft 

 in the vicinity of the several stations possessing the necessary equip- 

 ment. This method is invaluable ahead of the storm, where low clouds 

 usually obscure the higher ones. A radiometeorograph network for 

 deep atmospheric soundings has been extended. A special teletype 

 system has been installed, and other necessary improvements have been 

 made. 



The Weather Bureau is to be congratulated on the accuracy of its 

 forecasts and on the wide dissemination of timely warnings by radio 

 and other means while the danger lasted, thereby saving many lives 16 

 and much property. 



13 Courtesy of North Atlantic Area, American Red Cross, New York. According to the 

 American Red Cross, quoted by Sumner, op. cit. (footnote 3), the 1938 storm killed 494 

 and injured 708. It destroyed 93G houses and damaged 8,019, and destroyed 3,564 other 

 buildings and damaged 7,120 ; 2,605 boats were destroyed and 3,369 damaged. 



14 Day, R. L., in an article on the hurricane published in the Franklin Journal, Farming- 

 ton, Maine, October 10, 1944 ; and Sumner, H. C, op cit. 



" The great destructiveness of this storm is vividly revealed in "Hurricane," a picture 

 booklet of 52 pages published by The Standard-Times, New Bedford, and The Cape Cod 

 Standard-Times, Hyannis, Mass., 1944. 



14 One such survivor, Dr. Victor Conrad, whose scientific curiosity was nearly his undoing, 

 has described the deep, booming sounds of the black hurricane night and the effects of 

 physical features in varying the destructiveness of sea and wind at Hyannis, Mass., in 

 "Some Remarks upon the Destructive Effects of the Hurricane, September 14-15, 1944, 

 observed at Hyannis, Cape Cod, Massachusetts," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 26, 

 No. 2, pp. 217-219, October 1945. 



