Looking a little into the sensibilities and social commentary of H.G. Wells one can see that The War Of The Worlds was addditionally part of his ongoing crusade towards the need for the establishment of social democracy as the ultimate form of government. For this reason (amongst others) he is regarded as something of a prophet on scientific and social development. Wells loathed the purely Capitalist (now labelled Neocon) view of the world that he saw as causing the atomisation of society into enclaved groups of haves and have-nots. The director John Carpenter has continued this crusade for the modern generation with his society/sci-fi genre along with the writings of Kurt von Vonnegut.
In a very Scandinavian style of sensibility, he sensed the animalistic nature of society that would descend to the lowest common denominator of "me-ism" without the establishment of an underlying perpetuating values system whereby common folk could trust themselves to a system devised for the greater common good. This may seem very paternalistic and colonial in nature but Wells did perceive that people are very fallible (all too human) and far from being as "unknowable" as we presume ourselves to be, this cohesive system would be infinitely preferable to Law of the Jungle style economics.
By demonstrating some of the main types of basic humanistic reactions to an event such as the invasion of Martians (or hurricane in New Orleans, if you will) he categorises a range of human emotions within each sub-type (soldier, padre, astrologist, common citizen, rich, poor, etc.) and casts himself as a member of the American 4th estate (journalist) as eternal seeker of truth. The intention is to demonstrate (through the defeat of the invaders by the simplest organism on the planet) that Man is not nearly as clever as he or she perceives themselves to be without a cohesive society from within which to operate..
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