April 9 meeting features geologist, Carl Froede.

Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta

7 pm

Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 (Saffir-Simpson scale) storm that made landfall on the morning of August 29, 2005 in southeastern Louisiana. Although Dauphin Island, Alabama, is located approximately 112 miles to the northeast of Katrina's landfall, it experienced greater coastal damage than from recent Category 3 hurricanes that were closer to the island (e.g., Frederic in 1979 and Ivan in 2004). This is because the island was within the most intense area of the hurricane as it approached land (i.e., the top-right quadrant). The gulf side of Dauphin Island was impacted by a storm surge of 6.4 ft coupled with even higher storm waves. Pelican-Sand Island, to the south of the eastern portion of the island, absorbed much of the storm wave energy, resulting in a lessening of storm water damage to this segment of Dauphin Island. The elevated storm surge and diminished storm waves carried plant debris and sand tens of meters landward across this portion of Dauphin Island.

Conversely, with no offshore protection, much of the low-lying western section of the island was completely overwashed. In addition, numerous channels were cut through this section of the island. The greatest change to Dauphin Island was the creation of a 1.24-mi wide channel, cut through a segment of the undeveloped western end of the island.

Hurricane Katrina's impact to Dauphin Island demonstrates on a very small scale the power of moving water. The damage to the island only hints at the global devastation experienced by Earth during the global Flood of Genesis.

Carl's presentation will include "amazing" video and slides of the devastated island shot two days after the storm.

Bio:

As the son of an U.S. Army officer, Carl was born in Germany and has lived around the globe. In 1981, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the University of South Alabama in Mobile. His employment and experience in geology include oil and gas exploration and development, public health related soil analysis and classification, shallow aquifer contaminant potential mapping, underground storage tank and hazardous waste site groundwater characterization and remediation, and personal computer-based groundwater modeling. He has been a registered professional geologist since 1991 and is employed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency - Region 4 (Atlanta, GA), where he is engaged the characterization and remediation of contaminated hazardous waste sites at various Department of Energy facilities in the Southeastern United States.

Carl has been active in young Earth creationism since 1988 and has published various articles in the Creation Research Society’s Quarterly and Creation Matters, and the Creation Ministries International’s Journal of Creation. He has also authored a book, Geology by Design, which describes a biblical approach to defining Earth history from a geologic perspective. He and his wife, Susan, live in Snellville, Georgia, with their two dogs, Dudley and Chester.