While reading this the first thing I remembered was an experience I had around last year, I participated in a zealy sprint in which I kept on creating content and completing tasks for about a month, it came to pay day and these guys cancelled the entire sprint saying it didn't get the performance they wanted, obviously the community was furious and a few of us spoke up, the admin just went ahead and started kicking us out of the group and deleted all our messages, I guess that's one way to handle a crisis😂.
The slow mode is the first thing I'll turn on, controlling the inflow of messages is very crucial coz some people are very gifted as spreading FUD😂, i'll try as much to get across to the founder structure a prompt to him that convinces him in a calm manner to drop an announcement for the community, if not they'll have to settle for the CMs announcement, it should buy their trust to an extent since the CM is the bridge between the founder and community.
The speed of recovery or collapse explains the role of the CM perfectly in that situation. It's in the name manager, you just manage the situation either good or bad I guess.