Officials at the Marathon Detroit oil refinery said power has been restored to the facility after an outage prompted the company to burn off excess gas as a safety measure.
"You may see intermittent flares as we start up the refinery process units," the company said Monday in an online statement. "Flares are safety devices that allow for the safe combustion of excess gases under certain operating conditions."
City officials said they were monitoring the refinery, located on South Oakwood Avenue in southwest Detroit. The flaring produced smoke that drew concern from nearby residents.
As a precaution, Schaefer Road was closed from Interstate 75 to Dix Road. The company said on Monday that the road closure had been lifted.
Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and refinery personnel conducted air quality monitoring both on-site and in surrounding neighborhoods, the city said.
"Refinery personnel continue to conduct air monitoring, and have not detected any levels of concern," the company said Monday. "As always, the company’s top priorities are the safety of our employees, contractors, the community, and limiting any environmental impact."
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What caused the power outage
Southeast Michigan had up to 500,000 power outages after storms swept through the area on Friday. As of Monday afternoon, DTE reported that more than 73,000 were still without power while Consumers Energy said nearly 14,000 of its customers were still in the dark.
