On Hardball: Calif. Lt. Gov. Garamendi Threatens To 'Hammer' Insurers

One million residents forced from their homes, according to CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

UPDATE:  the NY Times - in an article about some flaws inherent in Calfiornia’s centralized emergency repsonse system (created after the Oakland firestorm) states this number, repeated by the cable news outlets, is inaccurate.  Calls to each  of the affected seven counties "suggests" the number is "closer to 500,000."

Just now, on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews: speaking from Southern California - the skeletal, smoking remains of burned out homes, and a staging area, as backdrop - former California Insurance Commissioner and now Lt. Governor John Garamendi fired this warning shot across the bow of the insurance industry:

The problem occurs down the road - a couple of days from now or  a couple of weeks from now….  And the insurance company begins to do what it will inevitably do every time: they begin to follow their first commandment.  And that commandment is: thou shalt pay as little as late as possible.  That’s not acceptable behavior.  There are rules.  There are fines. There are procedures in place to hold those insurance companies to a far better standard.  While I’m not insurance commissioner any more I can assure you, and the insurance companies ….I’m not leavin’ town.  I’m watchin’.   And if you guys screw up as you have in the past, you’re gonna get hammered.