Remain calm. Everything is under control.
Nice try but bad analogy. :-)
No one is denying anything or being pollyannish. If old Baghdad Bob had been truthful, he’d have said “US troops are outside the city, and they will enter, but they are not going to kill us all.”
Likewise, the earthquake and tsunami and core melts are really, really serious, but do fall just a bit short of “the end is nigh.”
But yeah, there is lots of work to do. Having perspective along the way helps.