NATCHEZ — Adams County Emergency Management officials say a postcard residents may receive soon could save lives by encouraging residents to sign up for emergency weather alerts.

Emergency Management Director Robert Bradford said the county plans to mail out a card to all residents to encourage residents to sign up for Code Red and also to provide the contact information for all the area emergency services.

“That will be great to try to reach every resident, every homeowner, and provide them with a lot of emergency information,” Bradford said. “It is something they can put on the refrigerator so they will have easy access to it in an emergency.”

Bradford said he also hopes the information will encourage people to signing up for the free Code Red service, which sends out inclement weather alerts.

Bradford has been pushing Code Red as he wants people to have as many notification options as possible in case some of the emergency sirens do not go off. Bradford said in some areas of the county, particularly indoors hearing the sirens can be difficult.

“Code Red is important because in case the sirens go down, you have an early warning weather system on your phone,” Bradford said. “We can use it to let you know where the severe weather is located in your area.”

Bradford said he plans to mail the cards out in March. He estimates it will cost approximately $3,000 to $4,000.

Board of Supervisors President Mike Lazarus said not enough people are participating in Code Red. Out of approximately 30,000 residents in the county, 6,274 had signed up as of Monday.

“It’s free to the public — it won’t cost you a dime,” Lazarus said. “And there are other events we can attach to it, like when the county had a case of the West Nile Virus, we sent it out to alert the people in the affected areas.

“We are encouraging people to sign up because you need to be warned in as many ways as you can when bad weather hits. I have it on all of my phones — it’s just a valuable tool.”

Code Red can come as a call, an email and a text message, Bradford said, and is free to sign up for. To sign up, visit adamscountyms.net, and click on the emergency management page within the county departments tab. A link to the Code Red system is on that page.