them on a high speed chase before crashing into another car. she jumped out and grabbed her baby from the backseat. she tried to carjack a driver all while carrying the infant in the carseat. she was arrested. the child is now with protective services. a tropical storm warning was issued for parts of southern florida. gordon is headed toward the gulf of mexico and is expected to hit this afternoon. joining me is chad myers in the cnn weather center. the storm center right now is south of everglade city. it s moved past key largo and the like. it s moving into the gulf of mexico with very warm water. this escalated very quickly. this was 30 miles per hour when i arrived at 5:00 this morning. then it went 45. a new update at 11:00. here is the weather moving onshore all the way down to key largo. it does get into a very warm gulf of mexico. the direction is pretty much a given.
the entire community under water. residents this morning picking up the pieces. most will have to start from scratch. she rode out the storm in her aunt s home with their family. it was crazy. we thought the roof was just going to, you know, blow off. how did you make it through this? i was scared. reporter: she said the power of prayer got her family through the storm. we still got away from the water to, you know we just started working on this now. rebuild? yes. but we re safe. that s what matters. reporter: this is what it looked like here before the storm. living at sea level, they re used to flooding in everglades city, even hurricanes. but these storm-tested residents say irma was different. i was here last time for wilma, hurricane wilma. and right now it s a lot higher water than wilma. people watching us, they ll
significant hit to your bottom line. what florida s trying to do is get that infrastructure back together. businesses are now just unlocking their doors. they re assessing some of the damage. we talked to some business owners in fot. lauderdale who sy this will cost them millions of dollars in the ft. lauderdale area and there may be a long-term billion dollar impact in florida across the board, chris. nbc s jolene kent on watson island in miami, thank you. now our correspondent who s been getting a broad look at the impact across florida. from tampa to miami on i 95 south. he had a chance to visit one of the hardest hit areas in southwest florida on the edge of the everglades. reporter: a long eerie and water logged drive home for some of those hit hardest by hurricane irma. this is everglade city, florida. normally 500 people live here. most of them evacuated ahead of irma. this is what they re coming back to. it s total devastation.