Urgent repairs underway at coroner exam building in Port Royal. Here’s the problem
A mold issue has shut down the examination building at the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office in Port Royal, forcing emergency repairs of more than $300,000.
The Coroner’s Office, located at 1804 Old Shell Road, underwent a $437,000 upgrade in 2022 to add a dedicated forensic pathology suite, which allowed autopsies to be performed on site, according to Beaufort County.
But last Wednesday, the county made an emergency hire of a contractor after a mold issue was discovered in the examination building, County Administrator Michael Moore said.
The discovery kicked in an emergency procurement process and urgent work to address the problem began the next morning, or last Thursday, Moore said.
“The contractor is working expeditiously to complete remediation, construction and HVAC replacement to improve humidity control, which appears to be a contributing factor in this case,” Moore said.
The estimated cost of the work, which will take five to six weeks to complete, is $350,000, Moore said.
Using a disaster recovery mobile cooler
Coroner operations are continuing through coordination with Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, use of a disaster recovery mobile cooler and “24-7 monitoring,” Moore said.
Until the dedicated suite came online in 2022, autopsies had been performed at MUSC in Charleston and took four or five days from the date of death and have taken up to seven or eight days, Beaufort County said previously.
Moore updated the County Council on the emergency remediation at the Coroner’s Office at a County Council meeting Monday.
The Coroner’s Office had been located in a small trailer in Burton until 2012 when work began on renovating the former Department of Disabilities and Special Needs building for the new offices and a morgue in Port Royal. The forensic suite was added in 2022 when a forensic pathologist was also hired.
Then-Coroner Ed Ott said at the time Beaufort County averaged 190 autopsies a year. With the upgrade, the county was anticipating that surrounding counties would pay to use the upgrade facilities about 50 times a year.
This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 10:31 AM.
