By Eric Miller
FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - A dike holding back the swollen Red River failed early on Sunday and swamped a school in Fargo, North Dakota, but a backup dike contained the spill as cold weather favored flood fighting and evacuation efforts.
No one was injured when the earth dike near the private Oak Grove Lutheran School gave way, and other barriers have held, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Frank Worley said.
The Corps is overseeing efforts by hundreds of National Guard troops, local residents and volunteers to reinforce and raise sandbagged barriers, dikes and other floodwalls around the metropolitan area of 175,000 people.
"We're really in a place where we're maintaining right now," Sergeant Ross Renner of Fargo Police Department said.
The river's level continued to edge lower and was 39.93 feet at 2:15 p.m.. CDT on Sunday, down from a record 40.82 feet on Saturday.
The North Dakota Health Department attributed two deaths last week outside the Red River Valley, both heart-related, to the flood. There have also been 50 flood-related injuries.
The National Guard, using boats, helicopters and high-wheeled vehicles, has rescued hundreds of residents who became stranded by water, Guard spokesman Lt. Dan Murphy said.
The flood has damaged 215 homes and destroyed five in North Dakota, state government spokeswoman Cecily Fong said.
At least 427 people have left their homes under evacuation orders. More than 2,000 elderly and disabled people were evacuated from nursing homes and other facilities, including 88 disabled children from a facility in Jamestown, North Dakota.
The temperature in Fargo was 31 degrees F (minus 1 Celsius) on Sunday, with highs between 30-32 F expected Monday to Wednesday. Significant snowmelt could begin by Wednesday.
The National Weather Service forecast six inches to more than one foot of snow for the Fargo area by Tuesday. Expected higher winds could also test floodwalls.
But NWS meteorologist Mike Hudson said the chances that the river has hit its highest crest are increasing as temperatures stay around freezing and the river level drops. "Every day we see the river falling is a good thing," he said.
Cold weather has frozen flood waters in area fields, keeping spring melt from further swelling the river.
The Red River Valley is an important farming region for spring wheat and sugar beets, although spring planting is still weeks away. Wet soil could delay some seeding, which for wheat and corn can go well into May. U.S. wheat prices fell on Friday as snowstorms in the Plains added needed soil moisture.
The north-flowing Red River should crest at 51 feet in Grand Forks, North Dakota, by Thursday, NWS said.
There has been little sandbagging in that city of 50,000 people because a permanent 57-foot-high dike of earth and concrete was built along both sides of the river after the last disastrous flooding in 1997, said city spokesman Peter Haga.
(Additional reporting by Rod Nickel in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Rich Mattern in Fargo; Editing by Peter Bohan and Eric Walsh)