Town officials gathered Wednesday to review plans for the repair and reinforcement of part of the old pay beach, in hopes of preventing a large portion of town waterfront from literally falling into the ocean — perhaps taking sidewalk and state highway along with it.

The town hall meeting came two weeks after the sudden collapse of a retaining wall estimated to weigh 30 tons, which held up a steeply sloping bank along Seaview avenue. Since the collapse, the sidewalk along the beach reportedly has sloped by as much as 20 inches while several new cracks have formed in the pavement along the road.

Town and state officials expressed urgency about repairing the infrastructure of the crumbling waterfront. The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management has confirmed that another portion of the wall is threatening to keel over and has advised the town to repair the area before opening it for the summer season.

Although Wednesday’s session was technically an informal meeting hosted by the conservation commission, it had the hallmarks of an emergency planning session, with several people describing the disintegrating waterfront as a crisis.

Several officials said they were thankful the retaining wall collapsed in February rather than July or August when the beach is packed with sunbathers. They warned that the town should not press its luck by ignoring the problem.

“I hate to sound dramatic, but somebody could have been killed,” said highway superintendent Richard Combra Jr. “This is a life and death situation, and I think it would be irresponsible of us not to move quickly . . . I would not support opening that beach with [the waterfront] in its current condition.”

Approximately 20 town leaders, ranging from professional staff to elected officials, gathered for the meeting.

Conservation commission chairman Joan Hughes said the town has known for years about infrastructure problems with the town waterfront. Voters at the special town meeting in December agreed to spend $65,000 for a survey to examine erosion and structural decay at the town beach.

But Mrs. Hughes said the recent collapse at pay beach made repairing the town waterfront a priority. “It has become an immediate crisis,” she said. “We had hoped the wall would hang on for another few years but that didn’t happen.”

Conservation commission member and engineer Caleb Nicholson said bluntly that a separate plan to make land side improvements along the beach will need to be put on hold while officials focus on shoring up the beach. Voters at town meeting approved an article asking for $46,000 to draft engineering plans for a wide range of amenities such as new walkways, benches, lighting and railings.

The plans called for extensive renovation of the snack shack which has stood at the base of pay beach for decades. But with the collapse of the wall, which is directly adjacent to the snack shack building, officials likely will have to demolish and remove the building entirely in favor of building up the beach, Mr. Nicholson said.

Mrs. Hughes said the town cannot simply build a new wall because it would be susceptible to tidal erosion. Any new wall would not only threaten to collapse but also expedite the erosion of the beach. With sea walls, waves crash directly against the vertical surface and then wash the sand away. She instead advocated for a “soft solution” that included rebuilding the beach in front of the wall and creating a gently sloping bank that would absorb the constant wave action.

“[The conservation commission] would not recommend putting up another vertical wall. It’s a colossal waste of money, and we would not put the town in a position of building a copy of something that has already failed,” she said.

Conservation commission administrator Elizabeth Durkee said a natural coastal bank system is preferable to a retaining wall for a variety of reasons. In addition to slowing erosion, this would provide storm damage protection, flood control, wildlife habitats, pollution protection, recreation, and ecological and aesthetic benefits.

“All you have to do is look down at the end of the beach where the sea wall has already taken away the beach . . . the waves come in, crash against the wall and then wash the sand away,” Mrs. Durkee said.

Conservation officials then distributed a handwritten plan for the repair of the beach, the key component being the use of gabion baskets. These baskets are filled with earth or sand and are commonly used to stabilize waterfronts against erosion. These baskets have an advantage over rip rap, the stacking of large rocks along the shore, because of their modularity and ability to be stacked in various shapes, as well as their ability to gather and collect sand.

The tentative plans call for building a gradually sloping bank, anchored by these gabion baskets and concrete rubble fill then covered with sand. The whole area would then be fortified by planting vegetation, which would help to create a natural coastal dune system.

The key to success, said Mrs. Hughes, is to create a slope with at least a two-to-one ratio in terms of length to height. Doing so would require tearing down and removing the rest of the seawall structure as well as the old snack shack, she said.

Mrs. Hughes said the town must act quickly not only to prevent further collapse but also to satisfy the terms of an emergency work permit that was issued by the conservation commission the day after the retaining wall collapsed. According to the terms of that permit, emergency repairs along the waterfront must commence within 30 days of its issue.

“The clock is already ticking . . . in fact the clock started ticking two weeks ago,” Mrs. Hughes said.

The meeting then turned to the matter of how to fund the repairs, an especially sticky point considering the town may be facing a deficit upwards of $2 million in its next budget. Mrs. Hughes said start-up costs for the waterfront repairs would begin at $25,000; the final price tag would likely be much higher.

Officials discussed a number of funding options, including taking money from the finance and advisory board’s emergency line item or using some or all of the money already approved at town meeting for the waterfront survey.

Mr. Combra even suggested taking money out of the town discretionary fund to pay for the repairs. “We have to think of this as an emergency, and if that’s the case we might have to take emergency measures,” he said.

In the end, the group agreed to wait and see if the town might pay for some or all of the repairs. Both MassHighway and the state department of conservation and recreation have taken a keen interest in the situation and sent officials to survey the damage. The town got some good news yesterday when it learned the department of conservation and recreation was prepared to fund most of the emergency repairs and longer-term restoration of the coastal dune system.

Mrs. Hughes said the town already has contracted with an engineering firm to come up with a formal plan for the repair of the waterfront. She estimated work could begin within the next two weeks.

And while officials said it was important to have the beach open in time for the busy summer, they agreed it was equally important the project was done right.

“What we have is an open wound here that we need to heal instantly,” said Mrs. Hughes. “Yes, it’s important to get the beach open for summer, but there are many other things we have to worry about . . . namely we have to make sure that a portion of state highway doesn’t wind up in the ocean.”