Yes, I think WTC could afford to get alternate permits for all Ironman events.
Permits don’t cost a lot. In fact, I’d wager that permits don’t cost WTC a penny. The cost of the permit is getting the buy-in of the entire town to effectively shut down and give up their police and medical personnel for the day. I don’t think it’s reasonable for WTC to get host cities to agree to this twice, and for their planning purposes, the cities would have to plan to be ready on either day not knowing which one will come to fruition. Not to mention volunteers, hotels, everything involved in putting on an event of the scale of WTC races.
Honestly, I’m stunned WTC is trying IMMD again on 10/17. I don’t think that can be expected anytime there is a cancelation. What I do think WTC should do is come up with a standard event cancelation policy in which athletes are given free entry to the same event following year or 50% entry to a different event the following year. Or something along those lines. With all the events WTC has these days, cancelations will occur and they should have a standard response.