I didn't want to jump the gun on this, but as I expected, WWLTV.com New Orleans is reporting that storm refugees are being raped:

4:15 P.M. - (AP): Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center.

About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile.

Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten."

He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam appeared to make leaving difficult.

As I say repeatedly in my full time career, sexual assault is a violent crime of opportunity, in which the rapists takes the decision about his victim's body away from her and taking all her personal power away. Environmental stressors like, oh, say, a natural disaster, leave people feeling powerless and searching for a sense of control over the chaos any way they can get it. Of course, that thought process is never nearly that conscious, and there is never an excuse for sexual assault.

Unlike the so-called looting, rape is not being committed in the name of survival. It's a cruel, destructive crime that isn't even getting a fraction of the coverage. Even in a time of crisis when rapes are openly rampant, the right-wing media can't bring itself to cover that story. They're just perpetuating the silence and shame.