Maybe you could help fill in my mental model of what's going on. If I looked at the main electric panel in the house, I would see two hots and neutral coming from the electric company. If I traced those three cables upstream (i.e. from the panel toward the street), what would I see? And, where exactly is the demarc point?

I just can't figure how power can go out and recover without there being a breaker of some sort in the pathway.