Every night as the sun goes down on her family gas station, Ange Woël has to quell her own private riot.
Late Saturday, crowds besieged her service station, where she has hired a team of a dozen heavily armed security guards to chase away angry crowds at closing time.
Patience is running thin across Port-au-Prince along with the gasoline, food and water. Calm solidarity began to crack with increased looting, mob justice and late reports of the shooting death of a Dominican aid worker.
Earlier in the day, when looters tried to rob a collapsed downtown market, a mob attacked the robbers.
There were reports one of the looters was killed and set on fire.
At another market, men with stones, knives and hammers battled to grab T-shirts, bags, toys and any other items they could find in destroyed houses and shops.
While vast secitions of the city remained calm last night, tension was clearly on the rise.
A haggard Ms. Woël, her voice cracked from yelling at customers, said her security team hasn't had to shoot anyone - yet.
"We can't stay open because it's not safe. But people are more and more aggressive, everybody is constantly fighting for more, more, more," she said.
Ms. Woël, who co-owns the gas station with several relatives, has managed to keep open with on a generator and petrol reserves.
Now the gas is running out, and resupply has not begun. They've been running on reserves from the underground tanks since the earthquake. As gas stations come back online from generated power, it's creating a false impression of growing supply, Ms. Woël said.
Along with a sudden spike in violence, the city's tone changed ominously through the weekend. Haitians were told to sing to the heavens by their radio DJs to give comfort to those buried alive.
On Thursday night the women sang, and their voices rang across the city until sunrise. On Friday night, the song faded, and on Saturday night, the city was nearly silent.
Search and rescue teams began to lose hope. Some were planning their exit for the end of the weekend.
Les Perreaux