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The river appeared to be dropping -- albeit barely. Fargo officials, however, said they were holding their breath.

The school flooded after a leak erupted because of "erosion under a flood panel," officials said.

City crews and National Guard members were unable to contain the leak at Oak Grove school, and water came up through the floor and flooded the campus, the city of Fargo said in a statement. Nearby residents were advised to plug their sewers and monitor their basements, the statement said.

A contingency dike stopped the flooding from flowing into the residential neighborhood, said police Sgt. Ross Renner. He said he did not have a damage estimate for the school, which has 493 students from kindergarten through high school.

By 2:15 a.m. Sunday, the river was at about 40.31 feet, slightly lower than its highest level on Saturday, 40.61 feet. But Fargo officials warned residents not to assume the worst was over.

"In past flooding, you have to understand, we've had times in which people thought it crested and then it came back and went up," Fargo Deputy Mayor Tim Mahoney said.

"And our temperature is changing, so we will be reluctant to announce a crest until we truly feel there's been a crest."

City Manager Pat Zavoral added, "We cannot think that we've passed some milestone here." iReport.com: Are you there? Share your photos, video

The University of North Dakota has canceled classes until noon Monday while the Fargo campus of North Dakota State University has been shut down until April 6 as the state waits to see whether the worst has passed in a record-level flooding.

By Sunday morning, two deaths and 50 injuries had been reported in flood-related incidents.

The injuries included victims of car wrecks caused by flooded roads, epidemiologist Kirby Kruger said.

Other medical problems including mental health issues, carbon monoxide poisoning, and cardiac-related events were reported, Kruger said.

River levels were expected to stay below 41 feet and slowly drop over the next three to seven days, according to the National Weather Service.

Still, forecasters warned of "relative uncertainty" about the predictions, saying "the river will continue to behave in ways never before seen."

"The good news, or shall we say the cautiously optimistic news, is that the river is behaving rather nicely for us now," said Greg Gust of the National Weather Service.

"The official terms are that the crest is occurring. We don't believe that the actual, ultimate crest has occurred yet," Gust said, speaking at a news conference in Moorhead, Minnesota, across the Red River from Fargo.

Gust said forecasters had revised earlier predictions. For the next several days to a week, the river is expected to "stay very near 41 feet with fluctuations of half a foot to a foot, meaning we could rise well above 41 feet," he said.

Earlier, the National Weather Service had said the river could reach as high as 43 feet, the height of the city's dikes.

Like the Fargo authorities, officials in Minnesota said the revised forecast did not allay their concerns.

"I know we're all feeling a little bit of a sense of relief, that the river has slowed down, but I want to warn against any kind of complacency," Minnesota state Rep. Morrie Lanning said at the news conference in Moorhead.

"I want to caution on one thing that's different this time around: In all the previous floods, I don't ever recall a melt yet to happen after we reach a crest," he said. "We've got a huge amount of water that's frozen now that's going to run off."

Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker also said he was concerned with how long the river was expected to stay high above the flood level.

"Just because it crests it doesn't mean that the threat is over," he said.

Residents in Fargo and Moorhead warily waited to see if miles of levees and sandbags would hold.

Sandbagging operations came to a close in Fargo on Friday, after weary volunteers had filled about 3 million sandbags.

About 1,700 National Guard members were checking dikes in the city of about 90,000 residents, North Dakota's most populous. Mahoney said the city also had prepared "sand balloons" -- about two tons of sand that could be dropped via helicopter onto any breach, he said.

President Obama said he was monitoring the situation carefully.

"Even as we face an economic crisis which demands our constant focus, forces of nature can also intervene in ways that create other crises to which we must respond -- and respond urgently," he said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"For the people of North and South Dakota and Minnesota who live along rivers spilling over their banks, this is one such moment."

The president has signed emergency and disaster declarations for Minnesota and North Dakota, freeing up federal funds for the region.

Fargo officials emphasize that they have not asked the entire city to evacuate, although some residents have already evacuated some of the city's neighborhoods, hospitals and a nursing home.

After the river crests, the city may still have to endure days of high water, which will test their dikes and levees.

"The problem is containing the river within the area we've allowed it to be, and breaches and so forth can happen. So we have about eight days of significant concerns," Walaker said.

The Red River approached the 1897 level in 1997, when it reached 39.6 feet, a level that many residents thought would be the highest they'd ever see the river.

"Everybody thought after '97 that we had seen the worst possible situation," Fargo resident Jim Shaw said.

"We thought we were safe, we survived that one, we're good for the rest of our lives. So believe it or not, even though this area is prone to flooding, this is a big shock, this is a big stunner, and it's probably a wake-up call," he said. "Some people might reconsider wanting to stay here."

He said his family had moved valuables to the highest point in his house, and moved his daughters' sleeping arrangements upstairs.

"If there's flooding and it's furniture or other items; that's gone, that can be replaced, but I can never replace my memories," he said.