HOUSTON -- Some children taken from a polygamist sect in west Texas have arrived at Houston-area foster homes, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.

Three Houston-area facilities -- in Hockley, Harris County; Porter, Montgomery County, and Liverpool, Brazoria County -- have been expecting the children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado for days.

Some of the homes are hundreds of miles from San Angelo, including Houston, which is 500 miles away.

At 5 p.m., two buses carrying about 16 of the 462 children arrived at the Hockley foster care facility.

State troopers and an ambulance escorted the buses.

Officials at the shelter said they will do whatever they can to make the children more comfortable.

About 90 minutes later, buses carrying about three-dozen children arrived at the Kidz Harbor shelter in Liverpool, which has been accepting donations for the children.

The facilities said that the children would be kept away from the other foster children.

They expect to house the children until the next custody hearing to determine their fate.

The children, who will be in foster care for up to 90 days, may be enrolled in schools near the facilities.

A Houston-area attorney said some of the children are being ripped away from their families a second time by separating them from their siblings.

Betty Luke said her 7-year old client is being placed with her sister in Waco, far away from their brothers, who are being placed at a Brazoria County facility.

"It just seems to make better sense to me to place those two children, who are going to be placed together anyway, in the Houston area, closer to their brothers, closer to their attorney," she said.

Some attorneys said their clients should be placed closer to them so they can develop strong, trusting relationships.

"I can't imagine CPS placing these children into a facility that they have not investigated," attorney Donna Broom said.

Luke said the changes could be traumatic for the children, but she's doing what she can to comfort the girl she is helping.

State and local officials had been eyeing the sect suspiciously since it bought the ranch in 2003 and moved hundreds of its members in. They raided the property April 3, with heavy weapons and SWAT vehicles, after a female claiming to be a 16-year-old girl at the ranch called a family violence shelter and said her 49-year-old husband beat and raped her. That girl has not yet been identified.