... and it had knocked out the power to 352 houses over a several mile
area ...

Well in a rural area a single 11 kV line can easily be feeding that
number of houses and being rural thats almost certainly going to be a
large area. Also 352 house is no great load; base load of a house 1
kW, 352 houses, 352 kW @ 11 kV is only 32 A.

And when there're all cooking up the Xmas lunch;?..

The wires may look thin from the ground but there is a peculiar law
that says things that look big up in the air are small at ground
level but things that look small up in the air are big at ground
level. Round here the 11 kV lines are "wires" about 1 cm dia, that's
80 mm^2. Even several miles isn't going to have a great volt drop,
and they can compensate for that to some extent by using different
tappings on the transformers.

Yes 10 mm I've got a lump that burnt and arced a while ago..

--
Tony Sayer