• e-mail

An Ohio mother and her son were sheltering in their top-floor apartment Monday night when a tornado ripped the entire roof off their building. 

Shannon Barnes, 47, was cowering in the bathtub in her top-floor apartment with her son Khalil Murray, 23, when the twister hit the Westbrooke Village complex in Trotwood near Dayton.

‘I was sitting on the tub and Khalil was sitting on the floor and I started hearing the hail hit the window,' she told DailyMail.com.

The mother and son were in the top-floor apartment (circled) of this Westbrooke Village apartment building when the tornado tore the roof off

The tornado ripped the mother and son's apartment  to pieces. The inside of their destroyed home is seen here

Shannon Barnes' photo shows their apartment building which was ravaged by the storm. She said 'the building started shaking' before the twister tore off the roof

Khalil Murray, 23, and his mother Shannon Barnes, 47, were sheltering in the bathroom when the tornado hit

'All of a sudden the building started shaking. Next thing you know, it took the roof off the building.’  

'You could actually feel the pressure of it,' Barnes said of the terrifying tornado. 

Murray threw himself over his mother in the bathtub to protect her from the impact and the falling debris.   

Murray described struggling to breath when the twister hit. Air pressure drops inside the walls of a tornado.

'After I saw the tornado take the roof off I was gassing for air,' he said.

'I was inside of it and I saw lightning inside of it and I couldn't breathe.' 

The young man said he saved his mother's life.   

'I was so shocked that I was going to lose my mother. It could have taken me so I had to protect her,' he said.  

The pair were not seriously injured, though Murray said his 'back and arm hurts really badly'. 

Their home was completely devastated in the night. 

An aerial photo of Barnes and Murray's block shows the roofless building and the utter devastation caused by the storms

Another aerial photo from Tuesday shows residents of the Westbrooke Village Apartments in Trotwood, Ohio, sorting through their apartments

Debris is strewn about at Westbrooke Village Apartments in Trotwood, Ohio. The roofs were ripped off by the storm

'I’ll have to find somewhere to move to because it’s damaged,' Barnes said of her third-floor apartment. 'There’s nothing to go back to.’  

Barnes is now staying with her daughter nearby.  

The 'rapid-fire' tornadoes first touched down in the family's hometown of Trotwood, just outside Dayton, at about 11pm on Monday night.    

The city of Trotwood, which has a population of around 24,500, was hit particularly hard by what its mayor called 'catastrophic damage'

Cars were also damaged in Monday night's severe weather in Trotwood, Ohio. The tornadoes that tore through the state first touched down there

Rescuers dig through the debris of homes in Trotwood damaged in the powerful system of tornadoes that passed through the region

The community of some 24,500 people was hit particularly hard by what Mayor Mary McDonald called 'catastrophic damage'.   

McDonald said five busloads of displaced residents have been taken to a church offering temporary shelter while the American Red Cross assesses needs.

She says the community is getting a lot of help and support from federal, state, and local agencies, adding that 'we need that level of support'.

A Trotwood street sign was bent in the tornado, which brought down trees and power lines and scattered debris across the city

As many as 90 homes are have been damaged by the tornadoes that pounded through the region on Monday night

Residents of the Westbrooke Village neighborhood emerged from shelter to inspect the damage in their area caused by the storms

In wider Ohio, at least one person has died and at least 90 more were injured after the twisters ripped through the state, leaving more than five million people without power. 

As of Tuesday morning, authorities confirmed one death in Celina, about 75 miles northwest of Dayton. 

The one known fatality so far is 81-year-old Melvin Dale Hannah, according to Celina Mayor Jeffrey Hazel. The man died when a car crashed into his house while he was sleeping, Hazel said. 

An aerial image shows damaged apartments that had their roof blown off in the storm at the Westbrooke Village complex in Trotwood 

Emotional residents returning to the Westbrooke Village apartments found their homes and possessions in complete chaos

The tornado tore through the Westbrooke Village Apartments on Autumn Hill Drive in the 45426 area of Trotwood in the night

Dayton area hospitals have reported at least 64 injuries since a wave of severe storms swept through.   

Dayton Fire Chief Jeffrey Payne said that it was 'pretty miraculous' that there have been only minor injuries reported.

Payne attributed the good news to people heeding early warnings. Residents say sirens started going off around 10.30pm Monday ahead of the storm.  

Weather experts said 51 tornadoes were reported across eight states overnight and residents of Idaho, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, are still not in the clear as severe weather is forecast to continue through Tuesday and into Wednesday. 

At least half a dozen communities from eastern Indiana through central Ohio suffered damage, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). 

A man surveyed the damage to his home in Trotwood on Tuesday and gathered his belongings after the storm

Trotwood residents cleaned up on Tuesday after tornadoes ripped through Ohio overnight, causing at least one fatality and widespread damage and power outages

Trotwood's mayor said five busloads of displaced residents were taken to a church offering temporary shelter while the American Red Cross assesses needs after many homes were destroyed in the storms