Water protection on top of heat pump water heater

I just got and installed one of those new heat pump water heaters. I was able to plumb the cold and hot fittings to the side because the top has an air inlet and a heat exchanger, but there is some other plumbing above it like the air bladder. The plumbing in the house is mostly PEX and there are some of those metal clamp fittings above that air filter inlet for the heat pump part of the water heater.

I am worried about what would happen if one of those PEX junctions were to fail and water poured into the air inlet of the heater. Wondering if this would cause the unit to catastrophically fail or not.

The manual says not to put anything on top of the unit so as not to obstruct the air flow, but wondered if there was something i could get or make above it to allow the air to come in from the side while allowing the water to divert to the floor and not into the unit?