Oh Luggage, Where Art Thou?

Okay, the title isn't entirely accurate.  I know where my bag is, I just have no idea when we will be reunited. Here is my sob story.  I was supposed to fly into New York on Monday, but all flights to NY for Atlanta were cancelled.  Not cancelled that morning, or on my way to the airport, but cancelled as I literally walked into my gate area.  I was booked on the next available flight for Tuesday morning and went to the baggage claim office to retrieve my checked bag.  The baggage claim lady strongly recommended I let them keep the bag because it would be put on the same flight as me, and said if they pulled it for me then I would be waiting for hours.  After I drove home, my office decided to cancel the whole trip.  I immediately contacted Delta to get my bag back.  Oh, yes, we'll pull that bag and bring it to the Baggage Claim Office they assured me. Liars.  Fifteen hours is clearly not enough notice for Delta.  My bag was put on the NY flight Tuesday and has been hanging out in the White Plains airport ever since.  Allegedly, once the weather improves my bag will be placed on the first available flight back to Atlanta.

I understand that Delta is probably handling thousands of bags a day and that with the winter storm coming through this week, numerous flights were cancelled.  However, fifteen hours seems like sufficient time to find a bag.  They scanned the bag's tag as they put it on the plane.  Why wouldn't their scanning system say, "Hey, don't put that bag on the plane!"? My biggest gripe with Delta is that their whole bag tracking system is ridiculous.  You can track your bag online in real time.  Sounds great, right? Well, you scanning my bag two days ago isn't helpful to me.  Here's what would be helpful: an online note that my bag is sitting in White Plains because flights out of NY have been cancelled.  An estimated delivery date.  Anything really.  I've called the baggage claim office numerous times and only one person was remotely friendly and helpful.  Kudos to you, Rebecca- you should probably be managing that whole office.  She is the only person who seemed to have any idea what was going on, apologized for my inconvenience and reassured me that this situation is typical given the weather issues and gave me hope I will one day have my bag again.

This is first negative experience with luggage so I am probably more stressed about it than is really necessary. Have you ever had lost/delayed luggage?  Is waiting for days with few if any updates normal?