Mortality rate is different though. Where ebola causes an average of 50% of infected victims die, influenza causes ~5%. That's where the fear comes from I believe.
Flu is more widespread too so of course that means more infected and therefore more dead. If ebola infected 15,805,000 (using the best case of 5% total population infected with the flu, not the worst case of 20% estimated using the CDC's range, of America's 316.1 million people) then ebola would kill approx. 7,902,500 vs. the CDCs estimated 36k-50k deaths by flu.
Ebola is more deadly and we're further from treating it. We haven't "beat" flu, but we're a lot closer to that than "beating" Ebola.