Little Rock's river, creeks and freezes: a homeowner's guide
The events that put water in Little Rock houses, with the gauge readings, dates and agencies behind them. Read it before the next warning, not during it.
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Reading the Arkansas River gauge at Little Rock
The National Weather Service tracks the river at Little Rock as gauge LITA4, with observations from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Army Corps of Engineers. The gauge page lists four stages: action at 18 feet, minor flooding at 23, moderate at 25 and major at 27. It also keeps a list of what floods at each level. Here is that list in plain terms.
| Stage | What the NWS lists as affected |
|---|---|
| 34.6 ft | Flood of record, June 1833. |
| 29 ft | Baring Cross, Dixie and Eastgate areas of North Little Rock. |
| 27 ft | Major. Shillcutt Bayou backwater near 37th and 38th streets west of Highway 365; the County Farm Road area floods from backwater up the Little Maumelle River, cutting access to several homes. |
| 26 ft | Fourche Dam Pike and the community south of it begin flooding from backwater up Fourche Creek; Burns Park golf course partly flooded. |
| 25 ft | Moderate. Areas on the North Little Rock side near White Oak and Shillcutt bayous; lower Burns Park. |
| 24 ft | Homes on Gribble Street in the Crockett Addition may be affected; Beck Road, County Farm Road and Isabell Lane go under. |
| 23 ft | Flood stage, bankfull. Rebsamen Park Golf Course, Murray Park and Riverfront Park partly flooded; the marine terminal below the I-30 bridge affected. |
| 21 ft | North Little Rock closes its sewer system floodgates; water nears homes in the Two Rivers Park area. |
| 18 ft | Action. The Bill Clark Presidential Park Wetlands, parts of Burns Park, Cooks Landing and the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River Trail. |
The crests that set the scale
- June 17, 1833: 34.6 ft. Still the flood of record on the gauge list.
- April 20, 1927: 33.0 ft.
- April 21, 1945: 30.45 ft. The last crest above 30 feet.
- May 31, 1957: 27.87 ft.
- May 8, 1990: 27.7 ft. The NWS uses it as the reference for what happens at major stage.
- January 2, 2016: 24.93 ft. A rare winter crest, days after the city warned about Fourche Dam Pike.
- June 5, 2019: 29.71 ft. The tallest crest since 1945.
All crest figures from the NWS LITA4 historic crest list, checked October 26, 2026.
2019: the flood most people here remember
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas describes how a wet spring across the Plains filled the river's flood-control lakes in Oklahoma and forced releases downstream. By Memorial Day, Little Rock was at moderate flooding. Water backed up tributaries including Fourche Creek. North Little Rock sealed its floodgates along Riverfront Park to protect the Argenta district, recommended evacuating the Dixie Addition on June 1, and homes along Willow Beach Road flooded. Pulaski was one of seventeen counties declared federal disaster areas.
On June 3, with the river at 28.9 feet, the City of Little Rock said most homes were expected to stay dry, though water would come very close. It had made more than 23,000 sandbags available and helped evacuate 20 people from homes on County Farm and Beck roads. Its public works director warned that underground drainage was at capacity, leaving no room for rain runoff to enter the system. In Maumelle, the city closed its Park on the River area and police knocked on doors at the homes thought most at risk; the Maumelle page has the details.
Fourche Creek, Rock Creek and fast water
The river gets the headlines, but creeks put more water in houses. An EPA Targeted Watershed Grants report describes the Fourche Creek watershed as draining and filtering more than 99 percent of the Little Rock metro area, with about 90,000 of its 108,000 acres inside city limits and roughly 2,000 acres of intact wetland. The creek catches, stores and releases the city's floodwater, and the report names sedimentation and building in the floodplain as its biggest threats.
When the Arkansas River is high, Fourche Creek cannot drain. In December 2015, with a river crest expected around 26 feet, the City of Little Rock singled out the residential area near Fourche Dam Pike, because Fourche Creek floods there as the river crests. City crews helped Pulaski County Levee District No. 2 close five levee gates by the airport.
Rock Creek is the west-side story. On September 13, 1978, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says, 8.10 inches of rain fell, 6.25 of them in five hours. Rock Creek flooded the John Barrow addition near Boyle Park, ripping up streets and knocking homes from their foundations. Sewers backed up across western Little Rock, Coleman Creek flooded the UALR campus, and Fourche Creek flooded on University Avenue. Ten people drowned in Little Rock and three died in Benton, where the Lake Pauline dam failed.
The lesson for homeowners is simple. Flash flooding follows the creeks and the streets, not just the mapped floodplain. Look up your address on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, then look at where water runs on your own street in a hard rain.
Freezes that split pipes
NWS Little Rock called the February 2021 Arctic outbreak and heavy snow likely among the most significant in state history. Little Rock reached −1°F on February 16, its first February reading at or below zero since 1951. Snow lay on the ground for eight days, the month totaled 20.3 inches, and Little Rock Air Force Base at Jacksonville set an all-time low of −6°F.
An Arctic front on December 22 sent wind chills to −20°F at Little Rock Adams Field by the next morning, per NWS reports. Summit Utilities said the cold froze one of its regulator stations in the Rock Creek area, interrupting gas to about 100 customers. The City of Little Rock opened a warming station at the West Central Community Center.
NWS Little Rock describes it as one of the largest ice storms in recorded history in the state, shutting Arkansas down for the rest of the year.
What to do about it is on the burst and frozen pipes page.
The 2023 tornado and the clay underneath
The tornado of March 31, 2023 was rated EF3 with peak winds near 165 mph. The NWS survey traced it 34.4 miles from near Colonel Glenn and Marsh roads, across Chenal Parkway, Shackleford Road, I-430 and Cantrell Road, through Cammack Village, over the river at Murray Park and on through North Little Rock, Sherwood and Jacksonville. Many homes along that line lost roofing, and rain through damaged roofs turned wind damage into water damage. The storm page covers what to do when a roof opens.
Under the houses is a slower problem. The Arkansas Geological Survey explains that some clay soils absorb water and swell, then shrink as they dry, and that the repeated cycle can crack concrete foundations. A long leak or bad drainage beside a house feeds that cycle. The crawl space and slab page has more.