WILMINGTON — Clinton County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) announced a “Text to Join” option for CodeRED.

CodeRED is a free service for county residents and businesses to receive advance alerts for severe weather, and other emergency notifications from evacuation notices to missing child alerts.

County residents can obtain an enrollment link to sign up for the free feature by just texting “CLINTON” to 99411.

Residents and businesses located within Clinton County are encouraged to sign up for CodeRED to receive timely emergency notifications and other important information and instructions when alerts are issued.

When you enroll in the CodeRED system, alerts are issued to you by your geographical location. Alerts can be sent to your cell phone, land line, by text, and email. You choose.

CodeRED Weather Warning alerts are automatically generated when the National Weather Service issues a warning for your location.

Tell your friends and family about this service, states the EMA.

According to Clinton County EMA Director Thomas Breckel, a validation of the Clinton County database removed 4,352 bad contacts from the database that had built up over the years from closed mobile phone accounts and discontinued landlines.

There currently are 116 businesses, 1,943 residences, and 9,354 phone numbers, added a media release.