Sorry this happened at a most opportune time for you.

Here are some resources for your future flying (the thread is a "sticky"):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ather-etc.html

We don't like these things any more than you do, but in my 60+ years of flying, these have been a constant, regardless of airline.

And with weather (force majeure), AA isn't going to put you up at a hotel or buy your food.

Insurance is for that, and if we don't care to buy that we're left with "self insurance".

On FlyerTalk, we can't fix it, but we can learn how to prepare for and deal with it more effectively.