I understand that the space shuttle fuel-tanks are made
just outside New Orleans.
If New Orleans suffers a direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane
at high tide...

What happens if the shuttle tank factory is blown away
and takes years to rebuild?
Assuming the feds would desire to rebuild it at all.

The shuttle program might not only stall for years,
it might be cancelled outright and forever, leaving the Russians
and ESA in control of an incomplete ISS.
The ISS would suffer too, possibly never to be fginished.

Space programs are astonishingly vulnerable to nature;
and vulnerable to politician's whims too.