Editor,

I have never written to a paper before but I feel the need to do so now. On Thursday 04/05/2012 my husband and I were coming through Stollings. We are from out of state, Florida, and were here to visit family, friends and see the state at its best, spring, we thought.

We approached route 10 coming into Logan from an absolutely beautiful ride from Madison with our RV. As we approached the CSX railroad trestle we noted there was no sign designating the height. So my husband approached slowly with the light. Well, everyone in Logan County knows what happened. We lost the roof of the RV in spite of us inching along. So after backing up, pulling up the street (if you can call it that) to the Pepsi bottling company I went up to try to find some assistance there as everyone was happy to just drive by and look but offer no help.

At the Pepsi business I found the place open but could find no one to ask for help. I then took my granddaughter up the hill to an auto body shop, sorry I forgot the name, and the nice girl there allowed me to use the phone to call 911. Well the dispatcher was very pleasant and reassuring and informed me an officer would be dispatched immediately.

Back to the RV with the baby and people driving by at such speeds I had to run to keep from being splashed. By this time my husband had gotten the RV off that so called street and over to the parking lot of Tops, Toppers something like that. Where we proceeded to clean the debris and cut the AC loose so we could keep from doing more damage and being a hazard driving down the road.

We were there the better part of two hours and spoke with two people during that time. A nice young gentleman who was parked there and I approached for help and another gentleman who stopped and helped my husband lift the AC unit into the RV so we would not leave a mess.

At no time did an officer respond to us. I am thankful that in that time no undisclosed injuries to my husband presented themselves as calling 911 there is apparently a useless waste of time.

I am very disappointed. I grew up in Mingo County and had been excited about the trail system and the attempts to bring in tourism to this beautiful state. Now after yesterday I am saddened. With this type of treatment it will not last.

You say you want tourist to come and spend there money but you do not properly mark your roads, railroad trestles, nor maintain your city streets. When someone calls 911 no one responds, as an ER nurse that frightens me. And the people of the area seeing a distressed couple with a small child do not stop to offer assistance or a kind word or a bit of information.

My husband who grew up in a career USAF family all over the world says he has never seen such disregard for an area, from a community and its government officials who are paid to respond and render assistance. He also stated his intention to never return; which I hope is not true as I have family here; and to tell all our friends with ATVs to not come here as the service sector is severely lacking and you will not receive help if you need it. You may not think this could impact you much but he has worked for motorcycle shops in Florida and has many contacts in the dirt bike/atv venues. Word spreads quickly. When our friends here what happened to us then they tell their friends and so on……. Not to mention the RV blogs he subscribes to.

Thankfully we do have insurance to repair our RV which is our home, but it does not erase the event that was preventable by a few signs and some maintenance by the city, county and state.

Again I do thank the two nice gentlemen who did speak to us.

Marylin Belcher Windsor

Melbourne, Fla.