Today, severe thunderstorms and multiple tornadoes passed through New Orleans, Louisiana, causing significant damage to the area including communities that were hit by Hurricane Katrina more than a decade ago. The storms also smashed through NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility, one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world that the space agency uses to create parts for its rockets and spacecraft.

Only minor injuries have been reported and NASA employees and other tenants are being accounted for.

NASA says that a tornado hit the facility at 12:25PM ET and there have been no serious injuries. At this time, only minor injuries have been reported and NASA employees and other tenants are being accounted for, NASA officials said in a statement. There is still a threat of severe weather in the area and emergency officials are continuing to monitor the situation to ensure the safety of onsite personnel. The onsite Michoud emergency response team is also conducting damage assessments of buildings and facilities.

NASA may still be looking over the extent of the storms impact, but pictures of Michoud seem to show significant damage to the facilities buildings, as well as overturned cars in its parking lot.

Overseen by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, Michoud has been the birthplace of many key pieces of hardware the space agency has used to get people into space. The first stages of NASAs Saturn V rockets were built at Michoud, and the site was also used to stack portions of the Space Shuttles large, orange external fuel tank. Today, the major components of NASAs next big rocket, the Space Launch System, are being constructed at Michoud, to get the vehicle ready for its first flight scheduled for 2018. Its also where contractors are putting together the Orion crew capsule the vehicle that NASA wants to use to send people into deep space and onto Mars.

We will update this post as we find out more about the state of the facility.

For reference, here is a video of NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility prior to the storm:

Continue reading here:

Tornado damages NASA facility in New Orleans - The Verge