Stories have emerged of those trapped inside the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino contacting their loved ones and asking for prayers.

One man at the scene tearfully read out a text message sent from his daughter, who was still trapped inside the building.

“Shooting at my work, people shot. In the office waiting for cops,” Terry Pettit read out to a CNN camera crew as sirens blared in the background.

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Mr Pettit choked back tears before reading the end of the message: “Pray for us. I am locked in an office.”

According to CBS news, Mr Petit replied to his daughter saying, “Hide. Find a good spot. Hide now.”

A woman named Monique also told CBS News her sister, Gina, has messaged her saying: “There’s a shoot out at my work I’m scared.”

Another man, Marcos Aguilera, described the horror of learning his wife was inside the building when the shooters entered.

He said she had been forced to lock herself and other co-workers in an office and wait for police to arrive.

“She said all she heard was the shots, she didn’t get a chance to see anything,” Mr Aguilera said.

“She texted me, she said that she was inside, there’s a shooter inside shooting… She said I love you and I came over here.”

Paul Lacroix told US ABC news his son Casey, who also worked in the building, had texted him from inside.

“They’ve got a good handle on it. It’s not good seeing all the ambulances coming in and then going out,” Mr Lacroix told his father in the message.

Mark Scroggins, whose daughter was also in the building when the shooting occurred, said she was “shaken up”, and called for action on America’s mass shooting problem.

“My loved one is safe and they need to do something,” he told ABC.

“This is crazy, there are just too many shootings, too much bad stuff going on there.”

Watch Terry Pettit react to his daughter’s text message in San Bernardino: