Tornado, Floods and the Woods as a Sponge

Friday night the 31st of May there was a large storm moving through central Oklahoma. It spawned several tornadoes. One weak tornado travelled through northeast Norman with 2.5 inches of intense rainfall and brief blasting winds. Saturday morning there were few signs of damage in Norman. I drove to the SW Gate of the Woods with my knee boots to see what the storm had done.
I found flood water had travelled to within 25 feet of the gate. Along the South Boundary Trail, the water was flowing eastward. Fifty meters along the trail, the water was near the top of my boots, about 40 cm or 16 inches deep near the big pecan and the beetle trap. I thought that the water was receding, flowing rapidly out of the Woods. In fact, the water was still rising, flowing into the Woods along the north side of the dune, around its southwestern end and then filling along the south boundary.
It was marvelous to see what was happening. Isopods, ants, spiders and other arthropods were busy escaping to higher ground. Isopod pill bugs were clustered in thick groups on the upper surface of floating logs. Carpenter ants were moving brood to safety. Spiders were skating over the water surface, their forest floor habitat transformed or gone.
The water moved into areas that had not been flooded in three years or more. There were drowned earthworms there that I did not see along trails that had been flooded earlier and more often.
The Woods were like a big sponge, soaking up the excess flooding water, to release it slowly over the next several days to few weeks. The bigger the flood, the more the capacity of the sponge was used. Some of the floodwater will remain for weeks without strong drying winds. Much of the water will infiltrate the forest soil and replenish the water table. Depending on how long the water stays, trees may be stressed or killed by drowning their roots, or sustained by a good deep drink, mid growing season. with enough deep water replenishment for trees through the dry, hot months of summer.
The water will completely alter the ecology of the soil litter. Mites, collembola, nematodes, microarthropods had to climb to escape, or have a way to survive inundation. Bacteria and fungi.. most all decomposition processes put 'on hold' until the flood is mostly gone leaving sodden litter where microbial decomposition would then be kick-started and should progress quickly before everything dries too far.
I crossed over the West Dune trail to the Main Southwest trail and there let the water overtop my boots. Much easier to walk along without worrying about keeping my toes dry.
I found a box turtle in shallow two inch deep water looking to be feeding on vegetation at the junction of the E-W Trail with Hackberry Alley. It froze and I took a couple of snapshots.
Just the previous day, Katie and I had encountered a mating pair of box turtles as we walked northeast from the Elm Bridge. Now the Elm Bridge was underwater. The depth at the post was 40 inches. The depth at East Pond was 3.85 feet, well past its shoreline limit. The depth of the NW pond was 2.92 feet.
I surprised a large animal, sheltering from the water, west of the Elm Bridge.. the size of a dog or a deer or coyote. I did not see, but heard it quickly splash through the water running away from me.
Along the NW trail at NW#4 a large top of a green ash snapped off in the storm and smashed down on the trail, taking with it parts of a mulberry, cedar and other smaller trees. I returned after lunch with saw and cleared the blow down to the sides of the trail. It will be interesting to watch the colonization of the fresh green ash material by beetles.
Over the NW Pond, two Anax junius dragonflies had staked out territories and were testing their boundaries. This spring insect populations, including odonates, have been very low, almost absent, almost mysterious.. quite remarkable.. mostly evident with pollinators; it may be related to early March spring warming to 70F and late spring hard freeze to the high teens. One green tiger beetle Cicindela sexguttata was foraging along the wet trail. Along the West Trail, I found a drifting bloated immature hydrophilid beetle larva that looked like it had eaten more than its share of mosquito larvae.. Its belly was swollen and it moved slowly at first as I scooped it out of the water. Ferocious pair of sickle like mandibles (if you are a mosquito wriggler).