natural disasters and violence

I haven't accomplished much in the last few days. Been glued to the 24-hr news channels watching the horror unfold in New Orleans and Mississippi. The first day I watched a stranded seal who had been thrown by the storm into a parking lot from a nearby aquarium. Later they had to shoot the seal in the head because they didn't have a way to save him. It's of course just gotten worse from there. All the frail elderly people slowly dying, waiting for water and food and medicine. And no one is talking about the race and class issues here. FINALLY there was a commentator on CNN today who talked about how no one is talking about it, like the big pink elephant in the living room.

And WTF is going on with the roving bands of rapists in the streets??? Unfuckingbelievable. I understand the theory behind rape in wartime, but rape in a natural disaster? Someone please explain this to me sociologically. There are parallels of trauma and crisis and survival between war and a natural disaster...but what is the motivation for rape? What kind of dominance are they striving for that would cause them to turn on their own neighbors?

Here is a World Health Organization brief on violence and disasters.