Thursday's heavy rainfall sent a foot and a half of rainwater rushing through a main Goodwill warehouse downtown overnight, ruining as many as thousands of large boxes of donated clothing and other goods.

Goodwill officials discovered the damage at 4 a.m. Friday morning as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey swept through Nashville. They said in a statement the rising water hit stacks of 4-foot-high donation filled cardboard boxes and left them "wet, softened, toppled and broke open throughout the warehouse."

Spokesman Chris Fletcher said the extent of the damage was not yet known, but "the loss of donated goods will be massive."

More:How the rain from Harvey compares to the 2010 Nashville flood

He added that much of Goodwill’s stock of winter coats and other warm clothing and shoes were housed there, and those items were scheduled for delivery to stores this month.

Clothing makes up about 85 percent of the stored items in the 71,000-square-foot warehouse, while the remainder is hard goods such as home decor, books and electronics.

Fletcher said none of Goodwill’s 36 stores or other facilities were affected, and business continued as usual at those sites. He also said that while Goodwill has flood insurance for the downtown warehouse and its contents, cleanup is expected to take weeks or even months. Goodwill's downtown operations were also hit hard by the 2010 flood, which not only damaged warehouse inventory but other buildings, including the the new career center, as well.

More:Harvey's heavy rains have some Nashville residents rethinking lifelong roots, again

“We recognize that our losses pale in comparison to those suffered by storm victims in Texas and the Gulf Coast, and we encourage everyone to contribute to disaster relief efforts for those areas,” said Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee CEO and President Matthew Bourlakas.

“At the same time, we are heartbroken that donations that were generously given to us have been destroyed, and we welcome donations to help us overcome this unfortunate setback.”

Reach Ms. Cheap at 615-259-8282 or mscheap@tennessean.com. Follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/mscheap, and at Tennessean.com/mscheap, and on Twitter @Ms_Cheap, and catch her every Thursday at 11 a.m. on WTVF-Channel 5’s “Talk of the Town.”



