SARA Reporting Tool


The SARA Risk Radius Analysis Tool is a custom ArcGIS tool developed to assist the Cumberland County Public Safety department in their SARA Tier II reporting. The tool performs a series of analyses on sites with certain quantities of hazardous chemicals. The results of the analysis go into a plan for each site. The user enters in the latitude and longitude coordinates for the facility, information about the facility (name, address, state-issued ID), the chemical the analysis is being performed for, the distance(s) and units for the risk radii buffers, and a folder location for output files.

There are eight Python modules (scripts) comprising the tool:

  1. SARAReportTool.py obtains the user inputs from the ArcGIS tool’s dialog window, and imports functions from the other modules.
  2. riskRadius.py converts a latitude and longitude coordinate pair from the WGS 1984 geographic coordinate system into a projected coordinate system, and creates the risk radii (multi-ring buffers).
  3. floodplainAnalysis.py identifies if the building footprint associated with the facility is within a FEMA floodplain.
  4. populationEstimate.py loops through each risk radius and calculates the proportional population in each risk radius using U.S. Census block data.
  5. vulnerableFacilities.py loops through each risk radius and selects any vulnerable facilities within each radius. The selected vulnerable facilities are exported to a Microsoft Excel file.
  6. createMap.py takes a template ArcMap document and creates a new document centered on the facility and risk radii generated. Various layout elements are updated based upon user inputs. A .pdf export of the map is also generated.
  7. exportLayersToExcel.py is a helper function that exports the list of vulnerable facilities that intersect each risk radius to Microsoft Excel format.
  8. errorLogger.py is a helper function that handles reporting errors to the user.