The plywood sign outside the home in East Texas where eight Beaumont families had sought refuge from Hurricane Rita carried a simple message: "Help Needed. Ice and Water. 43 People."

The evacuees had no electricity and little water or food after the storm. As temperatures neared triple-digits, adults used paper towels dampened with bottled water to keep children from overheating. A campfire was built to keep mosquitoes away.

"The only thing we could think of to survive was to put out that sign," said Tiffany Moten, 24, who was staying at the home near Livingston. "Luckily, we were blessed, and we have a lot of friendly people who came up and brought us water and ice and things like that. We are trying to make it."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered ice, water and packaged meals Wednesday to residents who rode out the storm, but some officials in hard-hit areas criticized the agency's response, with one calling for a commission to examine the emergency response.

In Houston, Fema closed a disaster relief centre just hours after its doors opened when some of the hundreds of hurricane victims in line began fainting in the heat. Fema officials said they were caught off-guard by the roughly 1,500 people who showed up, but said it would reopen the centre Thursday morning.