Hi Earl,
There are different types and scales of precautions your HR department (and others) can take to reduce the likelihood of water damage to paper records.
I completely agree with Gary's "clear your desk" policy (which has security value as well), and it has essentially no out-of-pocket costs. I would add to that an "end of day patrol" of the file room, both to ensure no papers are left lying around and that all file cabinet drawers are closed. Again, a little bit of staff time, but no out-of-pocket costs.
A variant on this one is to systematically avoid using the bottom drawer on all of the cabinets. That way, if there's a flood up to say 12 inches, the upper drawers are safe. There's no immediate cash cost, but you are significantly reducing your storage capacity.
You could also place the file cabinets on some sort of base. Flat file cabinets come with optional bases up to 6 inches, but I couldn't find anything like that for conventional files. It might be worthwhile to build one into the room--just make sure it doesn't collect any water that might come down or in. Some cost on this one.
A more expensive option is to buy fire/water proof cabinets, such as this one http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/SENTRY-SAFE-FireWaterResistant-Filing-Cabinet-5ECH6?Pid=search. They are not cheap ($2,502.00), and don't seem to come in the lateral design that is prevalent in offices today.
If these records are really valuable, I strongly recommend installing motion, fire, smoke and water detection systems in the file room. You could even build a vault (Hugh Smith will give you the details) with a "total flooding clean agent" fire-suppression system (such as 3M's Novec 1230). Now this is serious money--and it requires some careful attention to the building's floor load capacity.
I have mixed feelings about the "plastic box" Alan Michaels offers. While I agree with Bill Creamer that it would keep running/dripping water off the box (I'm not sure it would work with records in filing cabinets), I have a concern that, if you don't keep tight control of the humidity and temperature, you could be creating a kind of terrarium in which all sorts of undesirable flora and fauna will grow in abundance.
Best of luck!
Fred
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Frederic J. Grevin, Vice-President
Records Management Department
New York City Economic Development Corporation * www.nycedc.com
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