COLUMBIA — When residents of Charleston's high-rise Dockside Condominium were forced to evacuate in February, lawmakers said the state should have a role in ensuring citizens' safety.

“When you’re telling people they only have 48 hours to move out, something has failed, the system has broken,” state Sen. Ed Sutton, D-Charleston, said at the time. “People’s lives, quite frankly, suffer.”

But the 2025 legislative session ended with no bills filed addressing the Dockside matter, while only a few related to studying aging and coastal buildings have been filed in previous years.

Six months after the Feb. 28 evacuation, lawmakers say the need remains for the state to step in. It’s just a matter of how, and of finding solutions that are most impactful.

Sutton, along with multiple lawmakers, s

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